Silent Masquerade Read online

  “Wait a minute! I thought I’d go with you. It’ll be fun.”

  Bill thought about it and then nodded. “Okay. But make your list first.”

  “I’m starving. Can we get some dinner before we go shopping?”

  “I don’t know.” Bill shook his head and affected an exaggerated frown. “You’ve been eating an awful lot lately. How do you plan to keep that figure if you keep eating like that?”

  Cara looked down at herself and then struck a pose. “Eating is how I keep this figure. You like?”

  Bill pretended to study it for the first time. “It’s okay.”

  Cara made a face and crossed her arms over one another. “Do you think I’m too fat?”

  Bill laughed. “What are the criteria?”

  “They say if you can pinch an inch, you’re overweight.”

  “Hmm... Sounds like a plan.” Bill started toward her, squinting, thumb and forefinger held an inch apart.

  Cara stood her ground, waiting for his touch, wondering if she’d started something that could easily get out of hand.

  Just as his hand came to rest on her waist, Cara shrank away, easing out of his grasp. “You’re supposed to do it to yourself,” she said with feigned harshness.

  “We were talking about your figure,” he retorted, his voice rich with controlled laughter.

  Cara thought for a moment that, under different circumstances, Bill Hamlin would be a most delightful companion.

  “Yeah, well, that’s enough talk,” she said with a sniff. “Let’s make a list so we can get going.”

  They needed more than just food. Basically, they needed everything—cleaning supplies, paper products, linens and light bulbs.

  Cara’s mood grew morose as the list grew longer. Her share was going to use up all her funds. She’d have to find a job right away and hope her employer would pay weekly.

  As if he’d read her mind, Bill broached the subject of money over the dinner they ordered at Antonio’s, a little Italian restaurant about a block from their building. They were seated at a table off in a dark corner, with only a candle in a bottle for light. He was looking at the list she’d made.

  “Listen, Cara, I have enough money to cover our start-up expenses. You might as well hang on to your money for now.”

  “No. We agreed to split everything down the middle,” Cara said stubbornly. If she became too dependent on this man, he could pull the rug right out from under her anytime he felt like it. It would be his apartment, his food, his stuff. And she knew nothing about him. He might be one of those people who just changed his mind on a whim.

  “Cara,” he said softly, leaning across the table so that nobody else would hear. “You’re going to need walking around money. You can’t have much in that little gym bag of yours, and from the weight of it, I’d say you didn’t bring a lot of the cosmetics and female stuff you women use. And what about clothes? If you’re going to get a job to pay your share, you’re going to need more than a couple of outfits, aren’t you?”

  She hadn’t thought about all that. He was right. She didn’t even have a change of shoes. It was becoming increasingly clear that she’d hadn’t thought things out too well before she took off in the dead of night. There really was no reason why she couldn’t have packed a real suitcase. It just went to show her state of mind at the time, and how terrified she’d been of anyone discovering her in the act of leaving and trying to stop her.

  She sighed and bowed her head over her plate of spaghetti. “I’m just not comfortable with you taking care of me,” she muttered.

  Once again, his hand on hers sent more messages to different parts of her body than a friendly touch should.

  His eyes had darkened to navy when she looked up into them.

  “We agreed we were going to help one another, Cara. This is part of it. If you had the money, believe me, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it.”

  “Perhaps your situation is more desperate than mine,” she hinted.

  “No `perhaps’ about it.” He snatched his hand away and picked up his fork, returning his attention to his plate. “So look at it this way—you’ll be earning anything I give you.”

  She grinned, relieved. “You need me,” she said, strangely thrilled by the thought.

  He wasn’t as thrilled. His face darkened, and his hand, clenching his fork, whitened at the knuckles. “I don’t need anyone! This was your idea, and I agree it’s a good one. But don’t think for a minute that I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  But then he saw the pain on her face. He put his fork down and sat back with a sigh.

  “I’m sorry, Cara. I guess I’m both wired and tired. Forgive my bad mood.”

  “It’s okay,” Cara said softly. “We can pretend it’s our first lovers’ quarrel.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Cara leaned forward and glanced from side to side, making sure no one could overhear them. “You know, like if we were really newlyweds, this could be our first quarrel.”

  With her face hovering in front of the candle, Cara was all softness and satin. Without thinking, Bill pushed the candle out of the way, while putting a hand behind her head to pull her nearer. “Now we can pretend we’re making up,” he whispered.

  His grin was wicked before he leaned forward to brush his lips against hers. She tasted of marinara sauce and lip gloss. He let his tongue make another sweep, and this time she tasted like warm honey.

  They clung together, their bodies slightly raised from their seats, for what seemed long moments, totally unaware of their surroundings. The sound of a tray crashing to the floor brought them out of their spell.

  “Why did you do that?” Cara whispered, her lips still humming from the feel of his.

  Bill shrugged, struggling to keep the grin on his face. “I told you, I was pretending it’s our first time making up,” he told her. But his voice was hoarse, and his own mouth ached for more contact with hers.

  Cara nodded and returned to her food. Funny the way she’d felt so crushed when he said he didn’t need her. She hadn’t realized how important it was to her that she be important to him, to his sense of well-being.

  “Good spaghetti,” she said, her voice a bit unsteady. “But we’d better eat up if we’re going to get groceries before the stores close.”

  It was at the supermarket that they learned their real differences.

  Cara was excited to find a favorite brand of bologna in the cold-cuts case, while Bill ordered a pound of pâté from the deli case nearby. Cara grabbed frozen pizzas from the freezer section, while Bill stocked up on juice concentrates. Bill was ecstatic to learn that the market offered fresh fish, and Cara made a face at that and went to the snack aisle to find potato chips and honey-roasted peanuts.

  They argued over brands—Bill preferring to read labels to determine ingredients, and Cara insisting the recognizable name was the way to decide the best buy.

  “Did you eat like that growing up?” Bill asked, casting a dubious eye at a package of sweet rolls as he tossed his own choice—sesame bagels—into the basket.

  “Nope. I ate like you do.”

  “So when did you decide that junk food was the way to go?” He poked gingerly at a cellophane-wrapped chicken-cheese burrito, that looked less like a burrito and more like a plastic model of chicken Kiev.

  “In college. We weren’t much into poached haddock in the dorm rooms. For one thing, we didn’t have the facilities, and for another, we learned to just grab something easy that we could nuke in a minute and eat on the run.”

  “Well, we don’t have a microwave, so you might want to put some of that stuff back, if that’s the only way to prepare it.”

  They did agree on fruit, but Bill preferred apples and peaches and Cara chose the sweeter grapes and cherries.

  Bill got a terrific surprise when they came to the meat counter and Cara and the butcher got into a knowledgeable discussion of the best way to prepare a pork roast.

  “Where did you learn t
o make a pot roast?” Bill asked.

  “My mom. She was a wonderful cook.”

  Bill halted in his tracks. “Was?” He hadn’t told her about reading her journal. He knew he should, but the moment never seemed right. She wasn’t going to take too kindly to learning he’d spied on her like that, read her most private thoughts.

  “Is. She is a good cook.” Cara busied herself reading a label on a can of sauerkraut. “Cabbage and vinegar,” she muttered. “Go figure.”

  “Cara.” Bill took her arm and gently pulled her away from the stack of sauerkraut. “Is it your mother you’re hiding out from?”

  Cara frowned and snatched her arm away. “I tell you what, Bill Hamlin. We’ll trade. I’ll tell you the story of my life and you tell me the story of yours.”

  They stared at each other over the wire cart of mismatched foods, and Bill knew they’d reached an emotional impasse. He realized, not for the first time, that they were barely more than strangers, traveling together through a haunted nightmare, each with his or her own secret to harbor. He could see in her eyes that Cara knew this, too.

  She stayed ahead of him for the rest of the shopping trip, and when they came to the checkout she excused herself quietly and went out to the car to wait for him.

  To Bill’s relief—or at least that was what he told himself—they maintained an impersonal distance the rest of the evening, and only fatigue allowed them to fall instantly asleep in their separate rooms.

  * * *

  “CARA, WHERE ARE YOU?” Bill called out as he all but threw the grocery bag onto the kitchen table and went running through the apartment.

  He stopped short and stared at her. She was on her knees beside the toilet.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Sick?” She stared up at him and then laughed, lifting her rubber-gloved hands up. “I’m cleaning the toilet.”

  Bill made a face. “Well, quit it. I got you a job. I mean, us. I got us both jobs.”

  “You got me a job? Really?” She was grinning and pulling the gloves off as she got to her feet. “Where? Doing what?”

  “With me. At the boardwalk. The amusement park. You’re going to sell ice-cream cones.”

  “Wow! Awesome!” She clapped her hands and did a little dance step. She stopped suddenly and leaned back against the sink, with a wry grin on her face. “Did you tell them I’m a college graduate with an M.B.A.?”

  He stared at her, aghast. “Are you?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a nod.

  “An M.B.A.?”

  “You got it.” She pulled the rubber band from her hair, releasing the ponytail to fall in a cascade of curls around her face.

  “You’re not old enough.”

  She turned to look at him, her chin thrust forward. “I’m twenty-six.”

  “When did you graduate?”

  “Last month.”

  He sat down on the nearest seat, not even aware it was the toilet. “You just graduated, and you’re on the run already?”

  Cara shrugged. She looked into the mirror and fluffed her hair with her fingers. “What does one thing have to do with the other?” She didn’t want to think about the fact that she’d met Douglas Harvard for the first time when he showed up at her graduation with her mother, their engagement already established, but news to her.

  “It just seems sort of...sad.”

  Cara grimaced. Pity was not an emotion she desired to evoke in anyone, least of all Bill Hamlin. “Hah! You want to talk sad? What about your own situation?”

  Bill’s jaw tightened. “You really fight fire with fire, don’t you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? If you can dish it out, you can just learn to take it.”

  Bill laughed and got to his feet. “You’re right. So do you mind if I say, I think it’s too bad you haven’t had a chance to use your degree yet?”

  “What do you care?” she snapped, hurting and not quite understanding the reason.

  “Because I know how fulfilling it is to do what you do best.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what is it you know so much about? What do you do best?”

  “I was a C.P.A. before...before.”

  Cara’s mouth fell open. “A C.P.—an accountant? That’s bizarre.”

  Bill laughed. “Bizarre? Isn’t that a little strong? I’m not exactly your garden-variety macho street punk, after all.”

  “No. But you were in the same field as me. Don’t you find that...bizarre...or ludicrous?”

  “You mean, too much of a coincidence?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Oh? Then how do you explain this?”

  He couldn’t. Was this a sign that they were really right for each other? Right for what? For holing up in a furnished apartment together, playing at marriage, playing at real life?

  “I don’t. I guess this is one of those times I’m wrong. Anyway, back to what I said originally—it’s too bad you aren’t going to be able to ply your trade.”

  Cara shrugged and marched out of the bathroom. “I suppose selling ice-cream cones could, technically, be considered running a business,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, well, you have to get over to the boardwalk and talk to the guy who has the ice-cream cart. He’s holding the job until he talks to you.”

  Cara went into the kitchen and began putting away the groceries. “What did you do about all the vital statistics—like social security numbers, and so forth—and what are you going to be doing there?”

  Bill cleared his throat. “I, ah...ahem...I have all that...all the papers and stuff, I mean. I’m going to be on the rides maintenance crew.”

  He tried to ignore her raised eyebrow, the questioning expression on her face.

  “I can’t use my social security number or my real name,” she said.

  “I told him you were my wife and that you hadn’t ever worked before. He said he’d pay you in cash every week, that you’d be working for him rather than the park.”

  Now Cara cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable with this conversation. Somehow, Bill had papers that allowed him a real job on a real payroll, and yet he was on the run. How could that be? What made her most uncomfortable was that she couldn’t ask. And how did he get a job as a mechanic? With those hands? No way. She shook her head, trying to clear away images and questions she didn’t dare pursue.

  “I’ll go and change.” She gave him a last look and left the room.

  Bill sank onto a kitchen chair and stared at the clock on the wall over the sink without really seeing the time. How could this work, when these kinds of questions were constantly going to come up between them? Sooner or later she would demand answers, he was sure of that. She was already coming into focus as a lot more woman than he’d first suspected.

  He shook his head, and took an apple out of the fruit bowl on the table, turning it over and over in his hands. An M.B.A. Not just a surprise there, but a hell of a coincidence, considering his own business degree in conjunction with his degree in accounting.

  He slouched back on his spine and began tossing the apple in his palm. If they were two people who’d met under normal circumstances, they’d have had quite a lot in common, actually. Hell, they could go into business together as a consulting and accounting firm. If they’d met any other way...at any other time... If he weren’t who he was, and if he weren’t on the run.

  Forever.

  He stood up and tossed the apple back into the bowl.

  * * *

  CARA LEFT a few minutes later, tucking her new light gray linen blouse into the waistline of her charcoal linen skirt.

  Regardless of what Bill thought, she didn’t really feel sad about her job. On the contrary, this was part of the adventure, the fun of it all. And she’d be out in the fresh air and sunshine every day, meeting people who were having fun and enjoying life.

  For a moment, she let her mind open up to the memory of preparing to take her father’s plac
e in the family business—until she’d learned Doug Harvard had already taken over. But even if she didn’t work for Dunlap Industries, she was qualified to do better than sell ice cream for the rest of her life.

  She blinked the thought away. Nothing was forever. For now, at least, she was going to make the best of things and accept what came her way. She was her own woman, her own person, and no meaningless job could take that away from her. Somehow, some way, she knew there was a fulfilling career in her future. This wasn’t her future. This was now. And she was going to do her best to make it a happy time.

  A big plus was the fact that she and Bill would be working together, seeing each other on the job, as well as at home. She wasn’t prepared to examine her excitement about that too closely. Let it suffice that it was definitely a bonus.

  Her step quickened and her pulse raced as she found more and more reasons to look forward to getting the job.

  The crowd on the sidewalk around her was less dense than usual, but she didn’t notice the man who crossed the street and kept her in his sights all the way to the boardwalk.

  Chapter Five

  It didn’t take long to develop a routine. They started the day with a leisurely brunch, eaten at a table in front of the large window in the living room. The window was like a huge television screen with an ever-changing parade passing at all hours of the day and night.

  Cara and Bill joined the throng around noon, after sharing the job of cleaning up after their meal.

  At the pier, they would part, Bill going into the bumper-car concession, Cara moving down the same walkway to the ice-cream cart where Mr. Gambrini awaited her with a huge smile and a ready compliment.

  “You look like rainbow ice cream today, Miss Cara,” he might say, if she wore the multicolored blouse with the shawl collar, or “You are a chocolate-lover’s delight, Miss Cara,” if she wore the brown sundress with the little bolero jacket and woven raffia belt.

  “You look pretty good yourself, Mr. Gambrini,” Cara always replied, though she’d never seen the man in anything other than his white pants and jacket. He always had a clean white jacket ready for her to put on. That, along with a jaunty white cap, was her uniform.