The Man She Left Behind Read online

  Satisfied she had everything under control again, Leigh retrieved her two suitcases and headed upstairs to her old bedroom on the second floor. Nothing had changed much since she’d left it fifteen years ago. The cream counterpane with its faded antique roses still draped the twin bed in her room. The matching dust ruffle had done its duty well, too, over the years. No doubt neither had been laundered since her mother had left to be with Leigh in New York a year ago. Leigh stifled a sneeze and rushed to open the window.

  The room was the smallest of the five bedrooms on the second floor, but it had the best view, looking out to the western ridge of sand dunes separating the two sides of the island. Invisible beyond the dunes was Pamlico Sound, the band of ocean separating Ocracoke from the North Carolina coast. But Ocraco ke Sound, the channel outside the harbor, was partially illuminated by the sweeping beam of the lighthouse on the edge of the village. Leigh drew away from the window and turned to survey the room some more.

  The first eighteen years of her life had been spent in this narrow space, and it was still cluttered with mementos of that time, kept by her parents as if they’d hoped she’d renounce her life in New York and come home. But college, a postgraduate degree and a chance to start at the bottom of an up-and-coming Wall Street investment firm had gotten in the way of that return. Not that she believed her parents ever seriously expected her to come back to Ocracoke. Few islanders returned to stay once they’d left for bigger pastures. And then there were those who’d never left at all.

  She shook her head, surfacing from the unexpected dive into the past. Enough already, Randall. She didn’t think she was up to sleeping there her first night back, and besides, the room needed a good airing. Dust and memories could leave together.

  Leigh poked around in her suitcase until she found what she needed for the night, grabbed a comforter from the linen closet in the hall, then headed for the door and the couch downstairs. She paused to look back, almost expecting to see her sixteen-year-old self sprawled on the bed, a novel in hand. She smiled, catching her reflection in the vanity-table mirror opposite the doorway. You’re a long way from sixteen, Randall, and right now looking every second of it. Then something else caught her eye. A photograph wedged into the upper right-hand corner of the mirror frame.

  She moved toward it, watching herself in the glass as she did so, her face paling the closer she got. She reached out a hand that trembled slightly and plucked out the photo. It was small enough to have been overlooked all those years. Spencer McKay, with his lanky seventeen-year-old length pressed against her fifteen-year-old self. Six foot something even then, he had one arm draped across her shoulders while he looked down into her laughing black eyes.

  Leigh crumpled the photograph and dropped it onto the vanity. Tomorrow, she told herself, everything would go out in the garbage. She switched off the light and closed her bedroom door.

  NOTHING IN THE WORLD compared to awakening to the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee. Leigh stretched her legs, flexed her toes back and forth and enjoyed, for a few seconds more, the moment of waking up. Then her legs stiffened. Hundreds of sleepy cells sounded the alarm. If I’ve been sleeping, who’s made the coffee?

  The balls of her feet pushed against the end of the couch as she levered herself to a sitting position. The living room was in darkness, but splinters of sunlight cut through the gap in the heavy curtains. Leigh could make out the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor, as well as her Day-Timer, which was facedown on the novel she’d cracked open in the wee hours of morning. She swung off the couch, kicked aside the books and struggled to her feet, wrapping the comforter around her.

  “Hello?” she called out, her voice a reedy whisper. She called out again, and this time her voice gained volume. There was still no answer, but she thought she heard someone in the kitchen. She padded across the hardwood floor, into the hall and along to the rear of the house.

  A short plump woman was leaning over the kitchen sink washing dishes and singing softly. Leigh hesitated, then cleared her throat.

  The woman jumped, letting something clatter into the sink. “Mercy!” she exclaimed, turning around to Leigh, standing in the doorway. Her round face flushed, then smoothed into a broad smile.

  “Leigh Randall! I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

  Leigh’s mind ran through its data bank for a name. “Yes, I mean, no. The coffee woke me up.”

  The woman glanced behind her. “Heavens, it’s all ready, too. Come in and set yourself down.” She pulled out a chair for Leigh, who sank into it feeling totally disoriented.

  The woman leaned against the counter and smiled. “You don’t recognize me, do you,” she said. Her tone was friendly.

  “It’s been a while since I was last home,” Leigh explained, playing for time. Then it came to her. “Faye Mercer!”

  The smile changed to a wide grin. “Close enough. People get me and Faye mixed up even more these days now that we’ve both passed forty. Faye’s my older sister. I’m Trish. Trish Butterfield now, not Mercer.”

  “Didn’t you used to baby-sit me?”

  “No, that was Faye. As I said she’s older than I am, though I must say forty is the great leveler, isn’t it? And how you’ve changed yourself! I don’t think I’d have recognized you if we’d met on the street.”

  Trish’s smile suddenly vanished. She shook her head sympathetically. “I was very sorry to hear about your mother. And I’m especially sorry I couldn’t make it to New York for the funeral. I sent flowers and a card, but it’s hard to say what you want to on a card, isn’t it?” She paused briefly before asking, “Will you be burying your mother’s ashes with your dad’s? Ellen was such a lovely person. I’d taken to popping in to visit her before she went to New York.”

  Too overwhelmed by the memory of her mother’s last few months, Leigh only nodded and whispered, “Yes. Later.” In her final days Ellen had asked to be cremated and had told Leigh to bury her ashes at a convenient time in the future—preferably next to her husband.

  So like her mother, Leigh thought, to be considerate of her feelings even as she neared death. Ellen had known the emotional turmoil that a return to Ocracoke would cause her daughter.

  Leigh’s smile felt strained. She was bewildered by the chitchat, and her caffeine addiction was clamoring for attention. She glanced at the coffeepot.

  “Goodness! The coffee!” Trish swung behind her, opened exactly the right cupboard, pulled out two mugs and rummaged in a plastic grocery bag on the counter for milk and sugar. “You must be wondering how I knew you were here.”

  “I didn’t let anyone know but the Jensens.”

  Trish nodded. “That was it, you see. Mrs. Jensen got Sammy Fisher to turn on your water and electricity, seeing as how poor old Mr. Jensen couldn’t take care of it for you.”

  “How is Mr. Jensen?”

  Trish pursed her lips. “Not good, poor thing. The family’s looking for a nursing home on the mainland. He hasn’t recovered from his stroke at all.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Trish waited a respectful moment before continuing. “Anyway, I was on my way to the ferry early this morning and saw your car in the drive. Didn’t recognize it as belonging to anyone from the island and then I noticed the New York plates. I figured you must have come in late yesterday.”

  Another reminder how impossible it was to keep a secret on the island.

  “Here’s your coffee. I even picked up some doughnuts. If I’d had more notice, I’d have baked muffins for you.”

  “I’d planned to drive into the village for breakfast, but this is much nicer. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome. Least I can do for Ellen Randall’s daughter, not to mention a native islander come home. We don’t get many of those anymore!”

  Leigh smiled and sipped her coffee. “Mmm, delicious. You said you were on your way to the ferry?”

  “I work part-time up in Nag’s Head at one of those resorts. I just phoned my boss to say I’d be late. Things are slow yet. The tourist season will pick up soon, though.”

  Leigh remembered how excited she used to get when guests began arriving at the manor in late June. “Have you worked there long?”

  “About ten years. Since my hubby passed away.”

  Leigh’s sympathetic murmur went unnoticed as Trish paused only long enough to refill their mugs. “Is it true you’re planning on selling the house?”

  No secrets at all. “I hope to. It’s pretty hard looking after property from a distance. The past year wasn’t so difficult, but now that Mr. Jensen is unable to do it...”

  “Yes.” Trish sighed. “It’ll be hard for him to leave the island.”

  “I suppose.”

  There was a long silence. The bond of islandhood linked them momentarily. Leigh’s father used to say that islanders were a breed apart. They often had difficulty adjusting to life away from Ocracoke. Certainly Leigh had witnessed her mother’s spirit How out of her right along with her health, which had deteriorated rapidly once she’d left the island to be with Leigh in New York.

  Leigh feigned interest in the box of doughnuts and waited for the knot in her throat to dissolve. She wished Trish Mercer, or whatever her name was now, would go.

  It was an ungenerous thought, she realized. But the weight of the last year, her mother’s chemotherapy treatments and the many trips back and forth to the chronic-care hospice was suddenly and unexpectedly heavy.

  She felt a hand press her right shoulder. “I’m sorry, Leigh. All this prattling and you still coping with it all. Forgive me. for rushing in, but you know how islanders stick together.”

  Leigh looked at the woman’s kindly face and managed a weak smile. “I do appreciate it, Trish. And thank you for everything you d
id for my mother in those last few months before she came to New York.”

  “Not at all. Like I said, your mother spent her whole life helping others here. It was her turn, was all.” Trish dropped her hand and went back to the sink.

  Leigh watched her, thinking how she’d forgotten so many things about Ocracokers—their loyalty to one another and sense of pride in their unique lifestyle.

  “There now,” Trish announced, wiping her hands on a towel. “I’ll leave you to finish the pot. And I’ve put the house key your mother gave me on the counter. I won’t be needing it anymore and you can always use a spare. Although I suppose you’re not planning to stay on?”

  Leigh hated to erase the hope in Trish’s face, but now was as good a time as any to declare her intentions. “Only as long as it takes me to arrange the sale and pack up what I want to take back to New York.”

  “Will you be going to the local real-estate office? My cousin runs it.”

  “I’ve already been to a place in Nag’s Head.” Seeing the disappointment in Trish’s face, she added, “I thought it would simplify matters if I stopped in on my way down yesterday. I hope I get a chance to see you and Faye before I leave.”

  “I’d like that very much, Leigh, but I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with just me. Faye left the island a long time ago to live on the mainland.”

  “Well, the two of us, then.”

  “It would be lovely to see you. You can fill me in on your exciting life these past few years. How long’s it been, anyway?”

  “They weren’t very exciting years, believe me. And it’s been ten years since I was here for my father’s funeral, but fifteen since I left for college.”

  “My, how time flies! I hadn’t realized it’d been that long.”

  She was almost out the door when Leigh’s resistance crumpled. “Trish?”

  The woman stopped, a question on her face.

  “I... I was wondering if you could tell me about some of the old gang.”

  “Of course, Leigh. Give me some names.”

  “Chris Thompson?”

  “He’s a lawyer now up in Nag’s Head.”

  “And Jennifer Logan?”

  “She’s been in Charlotte about four or five years. You heard she and Spencer McKay got a divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  Trish shook her head. “That was a nasty piece of business. I mean, the way Jen just up and took off with their little boy without a by-your-leave. Cleaned out Spencer’s bank account and not a word to her grandfather.” Indignation rang in her voice.

  “I heard some of it from my mother, but we didn’t...she didn’t talk much about island life after I left.”

  There was a meaningful silence. Then Trish said, “Yes, well, that I understand.”

  After a long moment Leigh asked the one question that mattered. “And Spencer?”

  “He went through such a rough time, poor man. As if he didn’t have enough problems in his life. But it’s all worked out for him now. He went in on a fishing-charter business with Bill Cowan about five years ago and has been very successful. We’re all quite proud of him.”

  Leigh felt the corners of her mouth lift in a tense smile.

  “Well, enough gossip,” Trish declared. “See you in a few days, I hope. Oh—” she paused in the kitchen door “—how can I get hold of you? There’s no phone.”

  “I brought my cell phone with me so I wouldn’t need to worry about the telephone hookup. Wait, I’ll get my business card.” She rushed into the other room and returned with a small white embossed card, which she handed to Trish.

  “Ah. Leigh Randall, Investment Banker.” Trish beamed. “Don’t that sound high-and-mighty!” Then she burst into a hearty laugh, poked Leigh in the ribs and bustled out the back door.

  LEIGH FIGURED that Trish’s extra-strong brew was responsible for her three-hour cleaning bee that morning, but she had a tiny suspicion it had more to do with avoidance. I don’t need a shrink to spell it out for me or help me deal with it Just steer me to a mop and bucket. If she could’t go to the office to bury herself in work, she’d find plenty to do at the manor. And save herself the cost of a professional cleaner at the same time.

  By midafternoon she’d eaten enough doughnuts to resist temptation for the next five years and knew she could no longer put off going into the village. She spent some time preparing herself for the trip, trying on several combinations of the skirts and tops she’d brought. In the end she settled for a peasant-style cotton print she’d purchased in a frivolous moment last summer.

  She pulled back her hair on one side with a tortoiseshell comb and, satisfied with her appearance, left by the front door. She started to lock up, but caught herself Not on Ocracoke. She stepped into the brilliance of a sunny early-June day. The balmy ocean breeze seemed to carry the scents of faraway countries. Although the village was a short walk, Leigh decided to drive. She rationalized that she’d need the car for all the groceries, but knew the real reason was that it enabled her to make an easy and quick getaway.

  She made a bet with herself on how many minutes would elapse before she ran into old friends or acquaintances, settling on fifteen minutes. But she lost her bet, underestimating the capacity for verbal catching-up the locals had. Every place she went into—the bank to withdraw money, the post office to set up a box number and the gas station to refill for a trip to Hatteras next day—became an endurance test of attempting to attach names to faces she hadn’t seen in years.

  By the time she loaded groceries into her car, her head was buzzing with tidbits of information and her jaw was aching from repeating her refrain of why she was back and, no, she wouldn’t be staying. She was soaked with perspiration, and the impractical plastic shoes she’d bought in New York made her feet throb. And she still hadn’t bumped into a single former classmate, not to mention the one person she’d dressed for—Spencer McKay.

  She turned on the air conditioner full blast and headed north for Windswept Manor, the last house on the highway before the ferry dock to Hatteras. When she saw a small convenience store just outside the village proper, Leigh impulsively pulled in. The one thing she’d forgotten to buy was a bottle of wine, and she had a feeling the long evening ahead would demand one. She parked next to a beat-up red pickup and went inside.

  The cashier directed her to the rear of the store, where the wine selection was stacked on an upper shelf. It contained some surprisingly good choices. While she was debating between a chardonnay and a Chablis, Leigh became aware of the rumble of male voices in an adjacent aisle. Some disagreement about hot dogs or hamburgers. She reached for the chardonnay just as one of the voices rose above the other. She froze. Even after fifteen years, she’d know that voice anywhere. She let go of the bottle and headed for the front of the store.

  “Find what you wanted?” the cashier asked..

  “No. I changed my mind,” she said, pushing open the door and stumbling out into the blinding sunlight. Her hand was on her car door when someone spoke from behind.

  “Leigh?”

  She swung around into the sun and couldn’t see his face. But his voice—the one she’d heard in the store—hadn’t changed much over the years. Still deep, still commanding.

  Raising a. hand to her forehead, Leigh looked up at the man standing mere feet away. Her mouth was dry and black spots bobbed across her line of vision.

  “Hello, Spencer.”

  He shifted to her right under the roof overhang of the store so that she could look away from the sun. His eyes were the same china blue, and the sun-bleached hair was a touch thinner now, but the years had been good to Spencer. Once lean and lanky, he’d filled out in all the right places. Broad shoulders with pectoral muscles that strained against the pale blue T-shirt. His jeans were snug, the way he always used to wear them, and belted across a flat stomach. Yes, Spencer McKay looked better than ever.

  The hesitancy in his smile quickly disappeared. “For a second in there I thought I was dreaming. Just caught a glimpse of your back as you were leaving, but I’d have recognized it anywhere.”

  The urge to ask if that was meant as a compliment died as quickly as it had reared its mischievous head. She didn’t want to engage in any talk that seemed personal. Before she could reply, a teenage boy came out of the store. He didn’t look very happy.