Rekindled (17 page)

“Was,” she corrected herself, looking directly at him. He couldn’t miss the pleading in her gaze. “I’d like to put it behind me now. Will you help?”

Her pulse tripped for a minute until Ross’s wide smile sent it racing on. “That’s why I’m here.”

She frowned. “Why are you here? I mean, how did you know to be at the airport?”

“Your parents.”

“You talked with them?”

“Yesterday.” He looked pleased with himself. “You were overdue in Little Compton. Lee called me, we plotted your course, and put two and two together. When I realized you’d gone home I knew why. It was all I could do not to join you there. But it was something you had to do, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “I told them about you.”

“Lucky you did. It made the explanations simpler.” He paused, vaguely playful, vaguely curious. “What, uh, exactly, did you tell them?”

“That you loved me, that I loved you, that you’d asked me to marry you. But I also told them that I had to work things out there with them, to finally accept Crystal’s death, if I ever hoped to be as much of a woman as you deserve.”

At the last, all playfulness drained from Ross’s face, leaving a vulnerability that was the flip side of his usual strength. His hand trembled slightly when it cupped her face. “Have I told you how much I love you?” he whispered, kissing her eyes, nose, and mouth in turn.

“You’ll have forever to tell me,” she whispered back.

“Then you’ll marry me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ahhhhh.” With the long sigh, he hugged her again. His breath was warm against her ear.

“Tired?”

His neck smelled of him. She shook her head against it. “Nope.”

“You’re sure?” He tightened an arm around her waist. “It was a long flight.”

“I’m not tired.” She grinned. “I don’t think I’ll sleep for hours.”

Ross rose from the sofa and held out a hand. Chloe put hers in it and let him draw her up and into his arms.

“I love you, Ross. You know that, don’t you?”

“I have for a long time. I’m only glad you can finally say it. You’re free, aren’t you, princess?” She sighed, then smiled and said with a touch, just a touch of New Orleans, “I do believe I am.”

He laughed out loud and rolled his eyes. Keeping an arm around her to hold her close, he walked her to the stairs and up.

Lilac Awakening

In memory of my father, who gave me an eye for detail.

Nightfall was nature’s last resort in a bid to blot out her own splendor. For much of the afternoon across the upper Vermont countryside, ominous dark clouds had hung over the forested peaks, swarming, breaking, and regrouping in a macabre arabesque. Rather than stifling beauty, they enhanced it with a muted gray softness, sifted over the deep greens of the hillside. The power of the land was an awesome one, embodied in the proud posture of the pines on the hill, the free flow of the river winding through the valley, the gaiety of the orange Indian paintbrush swaying with meadow grass in the breeze. Darkness was only a thin veil over this primal beauty. Seeing through it, Anne Boulton felt blessed, and doubly grateful that she had left the city.

The summer had been an oppressive one in New York. Heat and humidity had rivaled each other, stubbornly clinging to highs that beaded foreheads and furniture with sweat, and made everyone and everything sticky. As the sky scrapered congestion closed in on her, so had wellintending friends and family, coaxing her out to lunch, when she wanted a tall cola and a salad at home, dragging her to the theater, when she craved a quiet evening alone, spiriting her away for a weekend of busy companionship, when she fancied a good book and healing solitude. In the end she wanted Jeff, but Jeff was gone.

Now, cocooned by darkness, she curled in a large upholstered chair. The wood fire in the hearth offered the only light, its orange and gold flames flickering hypnotically before her dark eyes. This was her first evening here. If the isolation, the peace were a harbinger, she had made the right decision in renting the house for the week. Time was precious, but it abounded here. She planned to read, to take walks, even to work. Mostly, though, she planned to think.

Late September in Vermont was the perfect time for soulsearching. With promises of misty mornings and golden afternoons, newly ripening apples and sweet corn, deer and squirrels and crisp mountain air, it was a perfect antidote for her malaise. The small house on its high perch was everything the rental agent had promised. No matter that her small car had nearly come apart jolting over bumps and ruts in the steadily climbing dirt road, the house was charming. It sat peacefully in the arms of giant maples and towering firs, its brown weathered shingles and silver slate roof blending with the earthen road and the gray of the sky. Low shrubbery, aged a fall green, bordered the house. Taller lilac bushes, their fragrant blossoms long gone but imagined, straddled the ebony front door.

Inside, the cottage was as compact as its surroundings were generous, with an open-hearthed living room at the front, a kitchen, bedroom, and bath at the rear. A narrow stairway on the far side led to a dormered attic. Decorated functionally and comfortably, the whole was a far cry from her elegant New York apartment, but the difference pleased her. This was a neutral spot, a place of few luxuries and no memories, a place where she could face life for the pleasure of the day.

And this had been a tiring one. Its morning had been filled with last minute errands-to the bank for money, to the library and the bookstore for the week’s entertainment, to the university for a delivery and a pickup, to the market for food. Its afternoon had been one of steady driving, then storing groceries and unpacking bags.

The fireplace had beckoned. Anne was bone-weary, had been lacking in stamina for weeks. As the wing-backed chair held her slim form, the dancing flames lulled her into recollection of a dinner with her parents the weekend before.

“I don’t understand,” her mother had tried to reason with her, “why you have to take off all by yourself. We’ve tried so hard to do what’s best. Have we failed?”

Arodous to ease her mother’s worry, Anne had forced a smile. “No, you didn’t fail. I just want to get out of the city for a while. You know, get a little of that fresh-air-and-color-on-my-cheeks type of thing?”

“Well, you could certainly use that,” came her father’s deep voice. Tall and distinguished-looking, Anthony Faulke’s sturdy frame belied his near sixty years. Anne took the darkness of her hair and eyes from him, though her willowed shapeliness was her mother’s. “But we’d have liked to have you join us on the shore in several weeks. Won’t you reconsider and wait until then?”

Anne shook her head. Not a hair moved. It was in a somber knot at the nape of her neck. “Now’s the time. I’ve already made the arrangements and paid for the place.”

Her mother tried again. “But you’ve never enjoyed traveling alone. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone with you? If I didn’t have the charity luncheon on Wednesday, I’d go with you myself. You need company, Anne.”

Anne hated worrying her parents. They had suffered nearly as much as she had, having to stand by and watch helplessly as their elder daughter’s life fell apart. When they looked at her, Anne knew what they saw. She saw it in the mirror each morning, the pallor in an oval face framed by pitch-black hair.

Still, she said, “I really have no choice, have I, Mother? I’ve been more fortunate than others, always having someone to be with. When it wasn’t you and Dad, it was Peggy, then my roommates at college, then Jeff.” Her voice caught on his name. She had long-since cried herself out, but that little break in her breath remained.

Marjorie Faulke grasped at straws. “Call Peggy. She won’t be starting classes for another few weeks. She’ll make the trip with you.”

But Anne shook her head. “No, Mom. Peggy’s terrific. For a sister, I couldn’t ask for finer. But she has her own life, her own friends. It’s not her job to baby-sit me. And I’d really prefer to be alone.” Her voice hardened. “I’d better get used to it, don’t you think?” Oh, yes, there was anger. Its only cure was through the courts, but it would be months more before things were resolved there.

A silence had hung over the intimate round table, its elegant place settings and fine food for otten. This had become a pattern, this family gathering turned wake, but it had to be broken. Anne had to start to live again. The trip to Vermont was a first step.

As the full blaze in the fireplace settled to a more sedate crackle, the patter of raindrops broke through Anne’s reverie. Stretching her legs, she stood, smoothed out her jeans, and padded barefoot to the front window. The darkness was dense. Staring out through rain-spattered panes, she was grateful that she had shut the car windows and locked the door. The idea of going outside to do it now didn’t appeal to her. As she stood, hands by her sides, eyes straight ahead, she could see nothing but the black of night and her own grim reflection.

She didn’t need friends to tell her that she looked gaunt and spectral. Her cheeks were pale, hollowed by a weight loss that had cut into gentle curves all over her body. Her mouth was more often drawn thin and straight now, rather than curved in a smile. Dark eyes that had once danced with happiness, now spoke of loneliness, and her hair didn’t swing. It fit her mood, which was restrained. Even now she had it tied back with a thin strip of black velvet whose ends were lost in the ribbing of her black turtleneck sweater.

This, too-this ghostly appearance-would have to change if she planned to start a new life.

She had been paralyzed for weeks after the previous January’s debacle. The thought of a future without Jeff was still alien. They had been married for seven years, though it had seemed forever. Anne was a sophomore in college, a language major, when she had met him during a summer of study in France. He was one of the few Americans she had seen during her three month stay with a family in a small village west of Limoges. His means of transportation had been a bicycle, his means of communication a brilliant smile, until he discovered she spoke English. From then on they were inseparable. He revised his touring plans to accommodate her, and when they returned to the States at the end of August, friendship became courtship. He was also from New York, his family home an hour’s drive from her own. By January she had transferred to his midwestern university; they were married the following summer. Only two years apart in age, they grew up together, passing through the college years of flux and idealism with hours of carefree camaraderie and first love. Both had come from hard-working, upwardly mobile families that helped them financially until they were on their own feet. But money hadn’t mattered, even when Jeff became a successful investment consultant. What mattered had always been Jeff and Anne, Anne and Jeff. Then, abruptly, it was Anne, alone.

When the stupor finally began to wear off, she took stock of her assets. She had a home-a spacious, well-furnished, stylishly decorated condo. She had money enough to live in it comfortably, with leftover to invest. She had friends. She had family. She had her own car, one not as sporty as Jeff’s Audi, but small, reliable, and gas efficient. And she had her work.

Fluent in French and Spanish, Anne worked as a freelance interpreter through most of her marriage. At first they had needed the money, later not so, but she enjoyed her work, and with nothing to keep her at home, it filled the hours when Jeff was at the office. When they planned a trip, she took on less work. When Jeff had a business trip, she took on more and was busy until he returned.

More than once during those long, morbid months, she had wondered what would have been if she had been with him on that last, fateful trip. They might have been together still.

But they weren’t. She was alone.

Gradually she took on more work, branching off into textbook translation for local universities. As opposed to interpreting, where she had to be personally on the spot at a given time on a given day, there was more flexibility in translation. Once the material had been picked up, she could tackle the job on her own schedule, in the comfort and privacy of her apartment.

The work was plentiful. She could pick and choose. Between her availability, her competence, and her promptness, she was in demand.

On occasion, she met overeager professors, even some young and attractive ones who were aware of her situation. She remained courteous and professionally efficient, but she refused to date them. It disturbed her, even angered her, that men thought she would want to date so soon.

Memories of Jeff were too near, too vivid, too dear. Those memories would eventually settle in, she knew, and she might date then. For now, though, she’d had enough of love and pain.

This trip was good in that sense, too. It gave her excuses to avoid dating. Between getting ready to leave with a million errands to do, being physically out of state for the week, and eventually returning to a huge pile of work, she was safe. She didn’t have to worry about men in the backwoods of Vermont. She was hoping she wouldn’t see anyone in the week she was here.

Pretty reclusive for a former socializer, she mused without a hint of remorse.

From the hearth, the sudden crumbling of an ash-split log startled her. She whirled from the window, eyes wide in alarm. When she realized what the sound was, she took a breath and uncurled fingers from fists. After months of being bitten to the quick, her nails had grown into nicely tapered tips. And there was her wedding band, wide and gold, gleaming with deceptive brightness, on the third finger of her left hand.

When the fire spoke again, cackling for a feeding, she knelt before the warm stone. Taking a piece of dried birch from the large wood basket, she laid it over the broken embers. The log heated, then burst into flame. It was an omen, she vowed, as she picked up her book from the floor by her chair. Slipping large tortoiseshell glasses over the bridge of her nose, she settled back between the chair’s wide wings. They were a comfort, these wings, serving to keep her sights on the fire before her, rather than on the darkness behind.

Her ticket to freedom lay in her lap. Ever an avid reader, Anne had escaped into books in recent months, when all else failed to calm her. As a friend, a book had advantages over the human variety. It was there whenever she needed it, it vanished as easily, and it never asked questions, expected witty replies, made awkward suggestions, or otherwise overcompensated for its own inability to right the wrongs of the world. She had packed a friend-a-day supply for this trip. That was all the company she needed.