The Last Refuge (29 page)

He chuckled, kissed the top of my nose. ‘Can you be ready to sail by January the third?'

‘I can be ready tomorrow.' I tossed the envelope into the air with a whoop and watched it spiral to the floor and scoot under the refrigerator. ‘But, wait a minute, Paul.
Patriot House
debuts on January the third!'

‘That's why TiVos were invented, my dear.'

He reached for me then, and I came into his arms, grateful that the places I yearned for him to caress were not swathed under yards of silks, laces, braids, whalebones, and furbelows.

Was I flying like Kate Winslet in
Titanic
? Making pottery with Patrick Swayze in
Ghost
? Carried off into the sunset like Debra Winger in
Officer and a Gentleman
?

I'll never tell.

But later, much later, as I lay back on my pillow with the afternoon sun slatting through the plantation shutters and his arm flung lightly over me, I said, ‘Do you know what I think?'

‘I gave up trying to read your mind a long time ago, Hannah. Is it good, or is it bad?'

‘Oh, it's good, it's very good.'

‘What, then?' he said.

‘I think I've just been flourished.'