Winter Affair Read Online Free

Reardon. Since Leda had only recently moved back to town herself, they greeted her warmly, expressing delight that she was among them again. Then they took the opportunity to shake their heads and wonder aloud what Reardon was thinking of, to come back to a place where he wasn’t welcome. Leda often diverted the subject to her relocation, explaining that since she had taken the job at the playhouse, she’d subletted the apartment she shared with another actress in New York. It made economic sense to live in the duplex and commute to the city when she had to, rather than run back and forth for her performances in New Hope. Her father’s friends nodded politely and quickly skipped back to the more interesting topic, the felon in their midst. The endless inquiries exhausted Leda, and she soon learned to cut the conversations short.
    In all the talk she never heard one word in Reardon’s defense.
    And on a couple of occasions she had firsthand experience of the treatment Reardon was receiving from the good citizens of Yardley. One afternoon she was in the pharmacy on South Main Street, standing unobserved behind a high counter, when Reardon walked in and asked for a bottle of iodine and a packet of gauze. He was wearing the same jacket he had worn in the graveyard, and there was a large, angry looking cut next to his left eye. The result of an altercation? Leda wondered. She watched as the druggist, an old golfing buddy of her father’s, treated Reardon with such glacial politeness that the effect was more offensive than the grossest insult would have been. Another time she saw him walking, erect and alone, through a chattering crowd gathering on the walk outside the movie theater. The show had just ended, and she paused on her way to her car from the convenience store across the street to observe the scene. The throng parted as if by magic to let him pass through. The people stared at him in rigid silence until he was almost out of earshot, and then someone made a comment Leda couldn’t hear. Reardon heard it, though; she saw him break stride and then recover, his broad shoulders squaring as if in anticipation of a blow. None came, however, and he walked on, never glancing back. The onlookers snickered nastily behind him, reacting to what had been said.
    Leda’s expression was thoughtful as she stowed her package in the back seat of her car and started for home. She couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for Reardon’s stoic endurance. He took all the abuse directed at him, subtle or overt, with quiet dignity, as if he expected it and had made up his mind to tolerate it.
    The image of him striding purposefully through that hostile assembly, eyes straight ahead, the lights of the theater marquee glinting on his dark hair, haunted her until she wished she could forget it.
    * * * *
    About ten days after her accidental meeting with Reardon in the cemetery, Leda received a call from the businessman who had purchased the hangar and airstrip formerly used by her father’s company. Matthew Phelps was a newcomer to the area, and when he had inquired about buying the property through Leda’s lawyer, she was surprised. It had been listed for years with no show of interest. Airstrips were not exactly in big demand. But he’d offered a fair price, just enough for Leda to satisfy the mortgage against it. The new owner ran a charter company, making supply runs and transporting groups of vacationers to sunny islands. Phelps asked if she would come out to the hangar office and pick up some personal items of her father’s that had been overlooked and were still there, ledgers and notebooks and even some clothes. Leda was tempted to tell him to pack the stuff up and give it to charity. She had no wish to relive painful experiences by sorting through belongings she hadn’t even known existed. But her innate good manners won out and she told Phelps she would be out that evening , steeling herself for a visit to her father’s