“Isn't that amazing?” Ben said in her ear, and she realized she had heard nothing the guide had said. Then she felt Kyle's hand on her back.
“Are you all right, honey?” he asked.
“A little dizzy.”
“Can you make it through the tour?”
She looked at Kyle's concerned blue eyes, looked away. “I'm not sure.”
“Stay here.” Kyle walked through the group of people to the guide and waited until his spiel in this cave was over. Eden saw him whisper something to the young man, saw the guide nod and speak into the walkie-talkie in his hand. Then Kyle spoke with Ben, who looked over at her briefly and nodded. Cassie leaned her chest against Ben's head, cupped her little fingers over his chin like the strap of a helmet.
Eden felt embarrassed as Kyle walked back to her.
“He's calling for another guide to come take you out. I'll go with you, and Ben and Cassie can go on with the tour.”
The rest of the tour group disappeared into the next cavern. Eden watched Ben duck to avoid hitting Cassie's head in the low-ceilinged passageway before they were swallowed up by the earth. Then she was alone with Kyle, standing in a circle of stalactites that made her think of bat's teeth.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just felt weak all of a sudden.”
Kyle sat down on a rocky ledge. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I felt the same way the first time I went into a cave after I sealed up the one at Lynch Hollow. It was years later, but the memories all came back.” He took his camera case from his shoulder and set it next to him on the ledge. “The last time you and I were in that cave was pretty unpleasant. You were so little—just Cassie's age. I guess you don't remember much. The river was—”
“Kyle, don't, please. I don't want to talk about it.” She thought she might get sick. She gripped the peak of the stalagmite next to her and let go of it quickly, recoiling from the cold, smooth, familiar feel of it. She remembered nothing of that last time in the cave. But afterward—she could see this very clearly—afterward the insides of Kyle's arms were scratched and raw. She remembered sitting next to him at the dinner table with her grandfather and some neighbors on a night when everyone was still and sad. She'd stared at Kyle's arms as he reached for something on the table, the cabbage or the sweet potato biscuits. She could see the pattern of those cuts, the long, jagged streaks of dried blood on the tanned skin of his arms. He'd seemed so old to her then. Actually, he'd been younger than she was now.
“A fellow called me last night,” Kyle said. “From Hollywood. Said he'd heard you decided not to make the film about Kate, so he wants to do it. He asked if I'd be willing to talk with him.”
“What?” Eden forgot her nausea. “Who was it?”
“William Crisper, Crispin, something like that.”
Bill Crispin. “He does glitzy stuff, Kyle. He can sensationalize a day in the life of a carnation. Please don't talk to him.”
“I don't intend to, although he was willing to pay me plenty to act as a consultant. Enough to save the site and then some. He said there'd be others interested in doing the film now that you've pulled out and he'd beat any other offer I got, but I told him the only person I'd help was you.”
“Hellooo!” A smiling young woman suddenly appeared at the cave entrance and motioned them to follow her. “This happens all the time,” she said, patting Eden's shoulder. “Don't give it a thought.”
As they started out of the cave the guide suddenly gasped and stood back to take a good look at Eden. “Good Lord. You're Eden Riley.”
Eden donned a smile. “Can we keep that just between us, please?” She could see the headline now: EDEN RILEY COLLAPSES IN CAVERN.
“Of course we can.” The young woman led Eden and Kyle back up the stairs and outside into the hot August air. She took Eden's elbow and pointed her toward a bench. “You're all right now. Just have a seat and get your wind back.”
“Thank you.” Eden sat down next to Kyle as the guide walked back to the caverns.
“Ironic, isn't it?” Kyle said. “That a cave was the only place your mother felt comfortable?”
“Mmm.” Eden's legs still felt rubbery, and she thought once again about Bill Crispin. It was unthinkable that he'd write the screenplay for a film on Katherine Swift. He'd turn out a piece of trash. Anyone besides herself who made that film would do it wrong. They'd distort Katherine Swift as she'd been distorted in the past. But at least they would never be able to learn what Eden had learned. Her heartbeat quickened. They couldn't, could they?
She looked at Kyle. “Who knows that you're my…not my uncle?”
“Just the four of us. You, me, Lou, and Ben. That genetic specialist I spoke with in New York died a year or so ago.”
“So there's no way anyone could possibly learn the truth, right?”
Kyle sighed, and when he spoke she heard a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “No, Eden. There's no way. Your reputation is safe.”
The doors of the cavern exit opened and their tour group emerged. Eden felt cool air brush past her face and arms. Ben stepped out of the door holding Cassie's hand. Cassie was speaking to him in her usual animated style, and he leaned down to listen to her.
“Ben and Cassie seem to be getting along fine,” Kyle said.
“I think she keeps him from missing Bliss so much.”
“Well, I doubt that.” Kyle lifted his camera case and slung it over his shoulder as he stood up. “It doesn't matter who you're with or what you're doing, you always miss your own child. Even when she's sitting right next to you.”
–40–
King's Dominion amusement park had been too much for Cassie, and Ben was certain it was his fault. He'd worn her out. Eden had let him, of course. Not once did she say, “She's had enough, Ben.” Eden seemed to know he needed this day to make up for the childless existence of the past year. But now both he and Eden would pay for their indulgence.
Cassie whined for the entire first hour of the drive back to the Valley—something he had not seen her do before. She'd finally reduced it to a whimper, and now she was slumped over her seat belt, sound asleep in the backseat of Eden's car.
Eden unfastened her own seat belt and got to her knees to reach into the backseat. “Can I use your sweatshirt to make a pillow for her?” she asked.
“Sure.” Eden was wearing shorts, and he took his hand from the steering wheel to run his fingers up the inside of her thigh. Her body quivered perceptibly beneath his hand. “I'd forgotten how good you feel,” he said.
“I hate this.” She sat down again. “I'm going to get a house of my own in Coolbrook even if I have to pay for the entire year.”
He knew having a place of her own where they could more easily be together was only one of her reasons for wanting to leave Lynch Hollow. She was anxious to get away from Kyle and Lou, whom she was treating with a distance they didn't deserve.
She took his hand and held it on her thigh. “Have I told you today that I love you?” she asked.
“Not in words,” he said. “But I could tell.” He'd caught her eyes on him a few times that day, watching him through the sunglasses she'd worn to keep from being recognized. Every time he found her looking at him, there was a smile on her face. Approving. Accepting. She'd bought him a sweatshirt, taken a dozen pictures of him, locked her fingers in his as they walked. He knew very well that she loved him.
They stopped at the small supermarket on the edge of Coolbrook to pick up something for dinner. They had to wake Cassie from a deep sleep to take her into the store with them, and she was pouty and mean. They bought lettuce, a loaf of Italian bread, spaghetti sauce. Cassie dragged her feet after them, wailing, “I want Reese's Pieces, Mom. I want Magic Middles.”
She stood between them in the checkout line, slumping dramatically against the counter. “Mom, I need them. Please may I have Reese's Pieces? Please, please, please?”
“You've had more than your share of junk today, Cassie,” Eden said.
Ben
pulled a ten out of his wallet, but Eden shook her head as she reached into her purse. He put his money away quietly, gratefully. She started to take a bill from her wallet, but her hand froze. He followed her eyes to the rack of tabloids above the counter and saw immediately what had caught her eye. There was a huge picture of Eden and Michael Carey, a wide black slash drawn between them, separating them. The headline proclaimed simply, unequivocally: EDEN DUMPS MICHAEL FOR CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER.
He touched Eden's arm and felt the stiffness in her body as she lifted the paper off the rack and set it upside down on the counter with their groceries. Then she slipped her sunglasses from her purse and put them on, although she was inside and it was nearly seven o'clock in the evening.
“Mom, I need them.” Cassie's eyes were on the candy display next to them.
Eden spun around. “Cassie, I said no, damn it!”
It was the first time he'd heard her speak to Cassie in anything other than a loving tone. But his surprise was nothing compared to Cassie's, who shut up quickly and whose eyes filled from exhaustion and the sting of her mother's words. He set his hand on her little shoulder and squeezed.
Once in the car, Cassie began to cry. It was a whining cry, grating in its insistence as it filled the ominous silence between him and Eden. The tabloid rested on Eden's thighs. The picture—Eden in a clingy, low-cut dress and Michael in a white tuxedo—was barely visible in the dim light, and she wasn't looking at it. She stared out the window at the darkening cornfields as he drove.
“I want Reese's,” Cassie crabbed, and then with a manipulative little catch to her voice, “I want my daddy.”
“Cassie,” Ben said, “would you please stop whining?”
Eden snapped her head toward him. “Don't yell at her!”
He felt as if she'd slapped him. He tightened his hands on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the winding road.
He pulled into the clearing in front of his cabin and turned off the ignition. For a moment the three of them sat in the dark car, listening to the rise and fall of the cicadas' song, unable to summon the energy to unfasten a seat belt or open a door.
After a few minutes Eden looked over at him. “I'm sorry I yelled at you.”
He tried to see her face, but it was too dark. “You knew this had to happen at some point,” he said.
“No,” she said quietly, reaching for the clasp of her seat belt. “I guess I didn't.”
Inside the cabin he melted butter and chopped garlic for the bread while Eden made up the couch for Cassie, who was too wiped out to protest any longer. She climbed between the sheets and was asleep by the time Eden sat down at the table and opened the newspaper. He was annoyed at himself for the guilt he felt. He had kept nothing from her. He hadn't betrayed her, but her silence felt like an accusation.
He tore a head of iceberg lettuce apart and began slicing a tomato. Eden glanced over at Cassie before reading him the lead-in to the article.
“Head of Handicapped Children's Fund takes child molester as her lover.”
He snapped the knife through the tomato and seeds flew, landing on the wall, on his shirt.
“Do they refer to me by name?” he asked.
“Yes. Someone really did his homework.” She read a bit of the article to herself, then made a sound of disgust. “Sue Shepherd,” she read, “president of the Handicapped Children's Fund, which was founded by Ms. Riley, said, 'If it's true, we certainly would no longer want her representing our organization.'” Eden's face was white, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she continued reading out loud. “A close friend stated, 'It's hard to believe Eden would get herself mixed up with someone like that, but her divorce left her pretty messed up, so who can say? They'll ban her children's films, no doubt about it. I can't believe she'd put her career in that sort of jeopardy.'
“Ironically, Michael Carey, who stands to lose the most by this turn of events, says be bears Eden no grudge. 'If it's true, then I'm worried for her. That's all I have to say on the subject.'”
It was worse, far worse than he'd imagined. He walked over to the table and set a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Eden, I don't know what to say.”
She raised her hand until her fingers grasped his, and he was relieved by her touch. She looked up at him, her eyes huge and clear. “Make love to me,” she said.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Cassie asleep on the sofa. “Where?”
Eden glanced at her daughter, then looked around the four dismal walls of the cabin until her eyes lit on the only possible source of privacy. “The bathroom.”
He followed her into the bathroom, aware of his own raw need for her. But it was the sex of a pornographic movie, the kind of sex he thought a child molester might have. Neither of them felt tender. The moment the door was closed behind them, Eden reached for the snap on his shorts and he pushed her T-shirt above her breasts. She leaned over the sink and he pounded into her, her own body hammering back at him with an anger he hoped was not meant for him. He came with a swiftness that shamed him, leaving her far behind. The cold white light of the bathroom suddenly hurt his eyes and he closed them to shut out the pain. He was breathing hard as he rested his cheek on Eden's back and slipped his hand between her legs.
“No.” She brushed his fingers away and stood up. “I don't care.” She pulled her T-shirt down over her breasts and lowered herself to his dingy bathroom floor, where she set her head on her arms and began to cry. Her weeping echoed in the cold metal and graying porcelain of the bathroom, and the walls tightened around him. He pulled up his shorts and sat next to her, trying to take her in his arms, but she was rigid—a jutting mass of elbows, knees, shoulders—and impossible to get close to. He stroked her hair, hunting for softness, then rested his hand on her hip where her warm bare skin met the wretched linoleum of the floor.
“Eden, please. Let's go in the other room.”
She shook her head without lifting it from her knees. “It's not fair,” she said.
“I know.”
“Everything was so good. I'd finally gotten close to Lou and Kyle, I had a wonderful film to work on. I'd fallen in love. Now it's all coming apart at the seams.” Her words were muffled. He had to lean close to hear her.
He sat back with a sigh. “Here's what I think you should do,” he said. She didn't raise her head, and he continued. “Call this garbage pail newspaper. Give them an interview. Tell them you had seen me briefly and I'd kept my past from you. Once you found out, you were shocked and outraged. You dropped me like a hot potato.”
She raised her face slowly and he was unsettled by the hurt in her eyes. “Could you let go of me that easily?” she asked.
“You've worked so hard to get where you are, Eden. I don't want you to lose all that—your career, the Children's Fund, the fans that love and respect you. There's no reason you should have to pay for my problems.”
She leaned her head back against the wall and he saw determination replace the pain in her eyes. “I'm not going to let the media run my life, Ben.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I've had a good career. I've had fame and money. I've had the Children's Fund. But what I've never had”—she reached out and touched his cheek, let her fingers linger there for a moment—”is someone like you.”
–41–
She refused to take any phone calls the next day at Lynch Hollow, and Kyle finally asked Michael and Nina not to call again. “Eden will call you when she wants to talk,” he said, and she was grateful and guilty for his intervention.
But then Wayne called. It was ten o'clock, too late for him to be calling to speak with Cassie. Eden took the phone from Kyle's hand and waited until he had left the kitchen before sitting down at the table, steeling herself for whatever the next few minutes would bring.
“Hi, Wayne,” she said.
“Eden. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
She sighed. “He's innocent, Wayne. The paper blew the w
hole thing out of proportion.”
“Look, Eden, I'm trying to stay calm about this. I'm trying to stay rational. But I did some checking on this guy. I have a friend who knew the prosecuting attorney on his case. The man's an abomination, Eden. What he put his kid through…Are you letting Cassie around him?”
“Cassie is fine. She's having a great time.”
“Do you know what that pig did to his daughter?”
“His name is Ben, Wayne. And I know what he was accused of doing. I also know he didn't do it.”
“Oh, I see. You know more than the judge and jury. Eden, please listen to me. My friend says Alexander is a pathological liar. On the surface he comes across like a great guy. Sincere. Honest as the day is long. But he has no morals. He's not capable of caring about anyone but himself.”
“You wouldn't say that if you knew him and knew how much he loves his daughter.”
“Eden, Jesus Christ! He abused his daughter. Not just once, either.”
“I don't see the point in continuing this conversation.”
Wayne was quiet for a moment. “I think this is all my fault somehow. I didn't handle the divorce very well and I guess it was harder for you than I realized. Maybe you're desperate or—”
“Don't flatter yourself, Wayne. I'm not desperate.”
“Well, my main concern—and I hope yours as well—is Cassie's welfare. If you insist on seeing this jerk you'll have to send her back to me.”
“Forget it. You had her for an entire month. She's mine now. And she's perfectly happy here.”
“I don't want her around him, Eden. If you don't send her back voluntarily I'll go back to court. I'll get her easily—you can see that, can't you? Your judgment is obviously out of line.”
She squeezed the phone cord between her fingers as though she could shut him up if she pressed hard enough.
“Does Kyle condone you seeing this guy?”
“Kyle knows he's innocent.”
“You've all lost your minds. Let me talk to Kyle.”