Now or Never (25 page)

“Oh,” Mal said again. “Oh, Harry.”

He ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, looking amused. “For a reporter, you are surely a woman of few words.”

“I thought that said it all. But if you want it in writing,
it’s bliss
. Harry, do you realize a woman could marry you just for your real estate? Each place you take me, I never want to leave.” She plumped down in a corner of the toast-colored sofa, beaming at him.

“I’ll bear that in mind, Malone. Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

They walked to the soaring wall of windows at the back, where Mal gasped with delight. The side of the mountain fell away in a sheer drop, and through a lacy vista of greenery, she could see mountain peaks and a distant lake. Harry opened the glass doors, and they went onto the deck, leaning on the porch rail, drinking in the silence and
the beauty. High in a tree a bird warbled a riff; the wind rippled through the leaves, and small creatures rustled through the undergrowth. Even the sunshine seemed tangible, bathing them in warmth and adding a golden sheen to the view.

“I’ve run out of superlatives,” she said, weakly.

“Every time I come here, I ask myself what I’m doing on the city streets, hunting down killers,” Harry said. “I see firsthand the hell man inflicts on man. Close up and in Technicolor. And then there’s all this.” He swept his arm across the view. “It’s kind of a renewal, coming here.”

“‘It restoreth my soul,’” she quoted, looking at him.

“Whoever wrote that psalm got it right. Though some I’ve brought here would not agree with that sentiment.”

She knew who he must mean. “Your wife?”

He nodded. “Jilly hated it. Once was enough for her. She said it was just the kind of place she had been running away from all her life.” He made a wry face. “She was twenty-one at the time.”

“And a nice, well-brought-up young debutante whom you had escorted to cotillions, and who led you on by letting you put your hand down her dress on the way home from the prom.”

“Is that what you really think?”

She shrugged. “Who else would you marry?”

He was leaning on the porch rail, staring at the view, but she had the feeling he wasn’t seeing it.

“Jilly was nineteen when I met her,” he said quietly. “She was a waitress, working at a roadhouse outside of town. Country Cousins, it was called.

“She was from a small town in Alabama, and she had this soft southern accent that turned my bones to jelly, just listening to her. She had long blond hair and eyes the color of whiskey, and when she walked across the room, every guy in the place watched her. She was wild and reckless. She drove an old Harley, and I’d wait around
until she got off work, just to see her take off down the highway, blond hair flying.

“When I asked her out, she turned me down flat. ‘Go home to your pa, sonny,’ she told me, with all the superior wisdom of a mature woman of the world talking to an ignorant student. Not even the Porsche could entice her to go out with me. ‘There’s guys with Ferraris come in here. So tell me, why do I need you?’ she said to me.

“I kept after her for months, but she wasn’t having any of it. She said we were just not on the same wavelength.

“I knew she was doing drugs. I even knew the guy who supplied them.” He looked at Mal. “You have to understand—Jilly looked like the role model for Miss Health and Purity. The tall blond all-American girl. I hated the drugs, and I hated him even more for getting her them.

“Then I asked her to come to my graduation, at Harvard. I was astonished when she agreed. ‘What do they wear at these fancy granduations?’ she asked, and I could see for once she was nervous. ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Just keep it simple.’

“She showed up in a sweater set and pearls and a knee-length plaid skirt, with her hair tied back with a ribbon. I thought she looked wonderful, like a girl from the fifties instead of the usual black leather spaced-out hog-rider.

“My graduation changed her life. She sat there next to my mother and father, conducting herself like a lady, saying all the right things in that slow southern drawl and just eating it up.

“We had the celebration dinner at LockObers, where she insisted I tell her the story of why the painting of the reclining nude, over the bar, was draped in black whenever Harvard lost to Yale. She was suddenly fascinated by all the tradition that came with college and money.

“‘This is it, Harry,’ she said to me later. ‘I’m quitting waitressing, I’m quitting doing drugs, and I’m quitting the Harley. I’m gonna be a lady.’

“And she did. It was effordess—the right haircut, the right clothes, the right manners. She was charm itself by the time we got married. And then I went and pulled the upper-class image right out from under her.

“‘I married a lawyer, not a cop’ was exactly what she said to me when she told me she was leaving. We had been married two years, but the last year had been lonely for her. She already had someone else waiting in the wings.”

Harry dragged his eyes back from the view, but Mal could tell it was his past he was still seeing. He shrugged. “That was that. I had offered her what she wanted and then taken it away. She liked the social life and the parties and the lunches and the clothes. She has it all now, in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has two children and devotes a great deal of her time to charity affairs.”

Mal could see he was wounded from the expression in his eyes. She said gently, “I’m sorry, Harry.”

“Don’t be. I’m over it. I can even wish her well now. We speak occasionally. She’s a nice ordinary woman.” He gave a wry grin. “She wanted a lawyer, and I wanted a Harley rider with her long blond hair blowing in the wind. I’ve had a soft spot for waitresses ever since.”

He slid his arm along her shoulders, drawing her nearer. “I told you this was a good place to purge your soul.”

He kept his arm around her shoulders as they walked up the wide staircase. The old pine treads were broad and shallow and creaked noisily. He flung open the big arched door at the top and said, “It’s all yours.”

She took in the beamed cathedral ceiling and the wall of windows overlooking the same magnificent view. And the simple pine bed, puffy with feather quilts, and the polished floors scattered with silky old rugs. The huge armoire must have been hewn by a master craftsman on the spot, because there was no way it could ever have been
carried in there. A couple of comfortable old chairs, covered in red-and-white-checked wool were arranged in front of the stone hearth, and a faded chaise longue had been placed in front of the window to catch the spectacular view. Rosy-shaded lamps were meant to cast a warm glow on cold winter nights, and the shelves were stocked with an eclectic selection of books for the insomniacs.

“I almost wish it were snowing.” Mal heaved a contented sigh. “We could throw a log on the fire and light the lamps and …”

“And?” He raised a hopeful eyebrow.

“And eat our picnic,” she finished firmly. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

They walked back downstairs and into the big square kitchen. It was unexpectedly old-fashioned, with tiled countertops, simple pine cupboards, and an ancient steel restaurant stove that took up half a wall. There was a stone fireplace in the corner, and a rugged old pine table that had been scrubbed clean for so many years it was bleached white. A dozen mismatched chairs were arranged around it.

“The cabin always used to be crowded when Dad was alive,” Harry said. “And my grandfather before him. It was always full of aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends. And dogs, of course. This old stove has yielded up many a simple banquet. When I was a little kid, I used to hide under the table when I was supposed to be in bed and they were eating dinner. Of course they knew I was there, but they let me pretend I was putting one over on them. The wine flowed, and the anecdotes and reminiscences, the stories of the fish they’d caught, or the quality of the day’s skiing, depending on the season.

“I liked it best when the snow was falling against the windows and the fire roared in the grate, and there was the smell of the rich stew my mother cooked up, and the fresh-baked bread that was Dad’s specialty. His relaxation,
he called it. He would stand there punishing the hell out of the dough with his fists, kneading it. Mom always said he was imagining it was his clients he was beating up.”

There was a reminiscent smile of pure pleasure on Harry’s face that Mal envied. She envied him those kind of memories, because all she had were blank spaces where there should have been family, friends, warmth, and relationships.

Harry rubbed his hand across the fast-growing stubble on his chin, smiling. “They knew how to enjoy themselves in those days. Very little man-made entertainment was allowed up here—no TV, no radio, though my mother was permitted her old record player. It’s still there on a shelf next to the fireplace in the living room, along with her collection of long-playing vinyl records—including ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’ And then there was the old upright piano that everyone took a turn at, even me, though none of us was very good at it. We would play board games, or poker, on the afternoons when it was too snowy to venture out, and charades after dinner. Then someone would tinkle a tune on the piano, or maybe Mom would put on a record while they sipped a bedtime glass of brandy, with the dogs stretched out in front of the fire.”

He said, “I can still see them all, in the glow of the lamplight, exactly as they were, though so many of them are just ghosts now. Happy ghosts, I like to think. Sometimes when I’m here alone, I imagine I can feel them around me. It’s a comfortable feeling, easy, like being with old friends.”

Mal was staring at him, as eager as a child listening to a fairy story. He shrugged and said, “Now you know why I love the place. It’s the continuity of it, the memories. The kind of memories I’d like to hand down to my own children.”

He went to the counter and opened the picnic basket.

“I thought you were starving.” He was back in a teasing mode again, but Mal was still thinking about the glowing picture he had painted of an unknown world. She was greedy for his life, not for the food.

Harry scooped Purina Chow Mix into Squeeze’s metal bowl, and the dog came bounding in from under the deck, where he’d been sniffing out potential rabbits.

Mal arranged the picnic out on the deck, while Harry got plates and cutlery.

He eyed the lavish banquet of roast chicken, with new potatoes in dill vinaigrette dressing and fresh asparagus spears, amazed. There was a wedge of French Vignotte cheese, a loaf of crusty bread, and fresh pears poached in red wine. “I was thinking along the lines of a Matisse sandwich,” he said, amazed.

Mal groaned. “I bring you food for the gods, and you want a sandwich.”

“Just fooling. In fact, this picnic calls for a good red wine.”

He made to go into the house to get some, but she called him back. “Water’s good. I need a clear head for the hike you’re taking me on afterward.”

“Afterward? I might just need a rest.”

She laughed. “Listen, Harry Jordan, I bought the proper hiking gear specially for the occasion, and I intend to use it.”

The dog’s pale blue eyes were fixed longingly on the food. Harry threw him a piece of chicken. “A dog’s got to get his strength up for this marathon hike you’re taking him on,” he said.

She smiled, chewing contentedly on a spear of asparagus, sipping icy mountain water, and drinking in the view. Happiness was like money, she thought; when you didn’t have it, you didn’t really know what it meant, and when you did, you didn’t even think about it. It was just there.

They dawdled over their picnic, then sounding very official,
Harry said, “Okay, you have five minutes to change, then we’re off. Before the weather turns.”

She gave him an oh-come-on look, checking the cloudless sky as she ran up the stairs.

“By the way,” she said when she got to the top, “where do
you
sleep?”

He gave her a cheeky grin. “I thought you’d never ask. I’ll show you when we get back. Don’t worry. There are enough bedrooms here for you and Squeeze and me to each have our own space, plus a fair number of others should anyone drop in. Not that it’s likely, Malone.”

“Mallory,” she corrected him over her shoulder, as she walked into the wonderful room that she was being allowed to pretend was hers just for one perfect night.

She changed quickly into sturdy hiking shorts that had what seemed an excessive number of pockets, a white polo shirt, thick gray socks, and stiff heavy-soled boots that took ages to lace. She put on fresh lipstick and her baseball cap and clomped back down the stairs.

He was watching her, arms folded, Squeeze by his side. He was wearing baggy coral-colored sailing shorts, a faded rugby shirt, a beat-up pair of boots, and a Canucks cap. There was not a hint of a smirk on his face as he looked at her, but she knew it was lurking there somewhere.

“I have a feeling I’ve got it wrong again. Sartorially speaking,” she said uncertainly.

“Let’s just say it’s a touch serious for the occasion.”

They had told her it was the correct gear at the store. She frowned, looking him up and down, and said sarcastically, “I suppose I should have chosen something in pink, like you.”

“I shall take that blow like a man, Malone. Though for your information this particular shade is known as Nantucket pink. Everyone wears it on the island—sailing, dining—”

“Hiking?”

“I may be unique in wearing it for that activity. And now that that’s settled, how about we get going?”

Squeeze recognized the words and leaped to the door in a series of wild gambols and yips. Mal paused at the top of the steps to watch him tear joyfully around, barking madly, wild with freedom. She thought with a smile that she knew just how he felt.

H
ARRY TOOK AN UPWARD TRAIL
through the woods. Squeeze led the way, circling back every few minutes to check that they were still with him. The bracken at the side of the trail smelled moist and green, and high above them birds fluttered from their nests, urgently trilling the alarm.

After half an hour Mal was panting for breath, but Harry was marching steadily on. She was determined not to give up.