The Perfect Letter (26 page)

She went into the bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching him. His thin, handsome face was frowning now, looking at the pages of Jim's manuscript, turning the pages quickly, engrossed in his reading. Clearly he was loving it as much as she had. It was one of the things that had first attracted her to him, the fact that they shared such similar tastes in books, that they both looked at books the same way—as a passion, not just a profession.

But that attraction had never, in the years they'd been together, deepened into the something more that made it possible for her to go from fantasizing a life with him to actually wanting that life. It was
a beautiful picture—but she knew, now, that she could not enter that picture. It wasn't for her, the parties in the Hamptons and the glamorous fund-raisers, the social stratosphere of New York's elite. She was still a farm girl from Burnside, Texas, and after she paid off Russell she wouldn't be a wealthy one anymore either. She'd be just like everyone else, doing the best she could to get by with her bank account and her dignity intact.

She'd be alone, but she'd be free. There was that, at least.

Joseph flipped another page. “I don't know what you're still mulling over,” he said. “You should definitely be signing this guy up. It would make a great debut for Leigh Merrill Books.”

“It would.”

He looked up and frowned. “Okay, then. So what are you waiting for?”

It was time for Leigh Merrill to face up: to the reality of what she'd done, to whatever consequences there were left to bear. She'd just have to do it without the help, or support, of Joseph Middlebury from now on.

She dug the ring out of the pocket of her jeans, which were lying on the floor. Then she set it down on the nightstand next to the bed. The heavy platinum made an audible
click
when she set it down. “We need to talk,” she said.

Joseph looked up, the expression in his eyes going from surprise to dismay to grim acceptance. He rubbed a hand over his face and looked at the ring on the nightstand. “I'm not going to like this, am I?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I don't think you will.”

L
eigh lay in bed most of the night, watching the lightning of a summer thunderstorm illuminate the inside of the cottage and then go dark again. Then the thunder would boom, the cracks closer together, the lightning coming thick and furious. It was hot inside the cottage, the ceiling fan doing little to move the air around; it clung to Leigh like a wet blanket. Her mind couldn't rest; her thoughts were jumbled together, knocking into each other like stones in a raging river. Soon she would have to make one more decision that would affect the rest of her life. She only hoped she was making the right moves in what was starting to seem like an impossibly difficult and dangerous game of chess.

She was exhausted but too nervous to sleep. Joseph had gone hours before, called a taxi to take him to the airport so he could fly home to New York. He'd been heartbroken, as Leigh had feared, but he'd also been indignant.

“I don't think you know what you're saying,” he'd said at first, in that way that seemed to indicate that he knew better for her than she knew for herself. Then something came over him, some darkness, and he asked, “Is there someone else? Someone you'd rather be with?”

Leigh had hesitated and said, “No. Does it even matter? No.” It was true enough, since Jake had made it clear he planned never to come near her again. Whatever they'd had—it was gone now. For good, this time.

“You don't seem so sure.”

“There could be someone else eventually. Maybe I even wanted there to be someone else. But it doesn't matter—this is about you and me.”

“Someone at the conference?”

“You're not listening,” she said. “There's something between us that's missing. It might be fine now, but down the road . . . I'm just afraid we'd end up hating each other.”

Joseph had looked shocked for a moment, and asked, “Whatever it is, I can work on it. I don't want to give up on us so easily. Tell me what you want, Leigh. I can give it to you. I can give you the whole world if that's what you want. If you need more time . . .”

“That's just it. I don't want more time.”

Leigh thought carefully. She wanted to say what she had to say with the minimal amount of damage. She remembered what Saundra had said, about how the physical parts of a relationship could carry people through even the roughest patches. With Joseph, it was clear now, the physical part of the equation was missing, or at least not powerful enough to carry them through every crisis.

“It's nothing we can work on,” she said. “There's just a level of chemistry we don't have. It's no one's fault, Joseph.”

His eyes darkened again. “Chemistry? Is that what this is about? You'd torpedo our whole lives over sex. What about everything else we have? Our friendship? Our work?”

“And those things are important to me, too. But it's not enough.” She couldn't help remembering Jake in the storage shed, the way her body seemed to turn itself inside out at his touch. “I'm not just talking about sex. It's intimacy, it's complete trust. I've never been totally honest with you, maybe ever. Not just in the bedroom. You don't know anything about my past, about my life. You don't know who I am, not really.” His face registered no small amount of shock. “I'm starting to realize how much of a problem that is.”

“What aren't you telling me?” he hissed. “Did you sleep with someone while you were here?”

Leigh's face was burning. He'd asked her point-blank the one question she'd wanted to avoid. But he deserved the truth, the whole truth, from her. If she was going to quit lying, if she was going to start being honest, truly honest, with the people in her life, she was going to have to bear the hurt she'd caused others, even if it cost her their respect and friendship. Even if, in the end, it cost her everything.

“Yes,” she said at last. “I did.”

Instead of howling in rage and punching the wall, like Jake would have done, Joseph stood very still, his voice going very small and cold. For a moment, he looked and sounded exactly like his aristocratic mother. “Who is he? Tell me his name.”

Leigh met his eyes. She'd caused this mess; she wouldn't back down now. “Does it matter? I felt this way before I came here, Joseph, you know that. It's why I couldn't say yes when you proposed at the launch party. The only thing that's changed in the last few days is that I understand more now what's been holding me back all this time.”

“I can't force you to love me. I know that.” He looked up sharply. “Is this about the imprint? Did someone else offer you a job?”

“No, no,” she said. “Nothing like that. I don't have any other job offers.” She took a breath and blew it out, screwing up her courage. “But since we're on the subject, I don't think I should stay at the company,
do you? You think you're upset now, but imagine how you're going to feel in a month or two. I don't think it's a good idea for us to keep working together under these circumstances. Maybe it would be best if I looked for another place.”

“Maybe it would be best,” he said. His voice was still so cold that Leigh nearly shivered. “I don't know if I can keep working with you like this. I don't think I can even look at you.” He sat down heavily on the nearby chair. “No Leigh Merrill Books, then.”

“No.”

“I can't believe you slept with someone, Leigh. My God.”

“I know. You didn't deserve that from anyone, least of all from me. I know ‘sorry' isn't enough.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet,” she said. “But I did figure out it was time I was honest with you about my feelings. I value our friendship and our work relationship, but I don't think in the end that it's more than that for me. I wished I'd figured that out years ago, but I didn't. I'm so sorry.”

“Did you ever love me? You said you did. You said it for months. Was that another lie?”

Leigh felt tears starting again—
why
was she incapable of stoicism when she needed it most?—but she choked them back and said, “I do love you. But . . . it's not the kind of love a wife has for a husband. It's admiration. Respect. But admiration and respect aren't enough to build a marriage on,” she said. “I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone who deserves your love. That person isn't me. But I know you'll find someone else, and I know you'll move on and be glad, in the long run, that you didn't marry me. Truly, Joseph, I am
not
the woman for you.”

“I can't even think about looking for someone else, Leigh. I feel like my whole life has been upended.”

“You will, someday. Any woman would be lucky to have you. I wish it had been me. Believe me, if I could have spared both of us this conversation, I would have.”

Joseph left after that. He said there was no point in staying, and she agreed.

So that night Leigh lay in bed watching the storm, watching the light go from black to gray as the sun rose. She got up and went to the window, looking out at the hills and the vineyard below, the light changing from dull gray to pink, then gold. A quick trip home to Texas had gone from pleasurable to preposterous in less than a week, but it was a new day, a new chance to make things right.

She'd lost her fiancé and her job. She was about to lose her money, which meant losing her apartment and possibly her mind, but she still had her work reputation, if not her personal one. Maybe that would be enough to start her life over. It had to be.

The only question was
how
?

In the morning she borrowed Saundra's car and made the drive into Austin to the bank, her hands gripping the wheel, white-knuckling it all the way into town. The Hill Country was a blur passing by the windows, the little ranches and the farms, the long, snaking arm of the Colorado glinting gray and sinister in the hot morning sun. Every once in a while she got the feeling she was being followed and looked behind her, but the succession of trucks and cars always seemed to be changing—a blue pickup here, a brown Chevy there, a shiny black Honda. She was being paranoid, convinced of trouble even when there wasn't any. Convinced she was being watched at all times. The familiar landscape of her childhood started to take on the hard, ugly cast of a war zone.

The bank manager met her personally, escorting her to a private
office away from the lobby. He gave her several forms to sign, checking her ID and then checking it again. When he was satisfied that Leigh was who she said she was, he went to a back room and returned with a large cloth bag, setting it down on the desk in front of her.

One million in crisp hundreds. Every cent she had left from her grandfather.

She shifted the money into the duffel she'd brought for the occasion and turned to the bank manager, who looked a little wan. “We're sorry to be losing your business,” he said. “If you change your mind, just know we'd welcome the chance to serve you again.”

Leigh gave him a grim smile. “Thank you. I will keep that in mind.”
If I come by another grandfather who leaves me a trust fund, I'll be sure to look you up,
she thought. She was starting to sound like Chloe.

Leigh picked up the duffel and strode out of the bank, pausing only once to look behind her. The daily life of the city ground on—tourists stopping to take pictures on the Congress Avenue Bridge, a hipster on a unicycle playing the bagpipes for tips, cowboys in Stetsons and giant silver belt buckles rattling up to the bank in enormous pickup trucks, kids on day trips with their parents to the capitol, eyeing everything with wonder. She'd missed Texas. She'd miss it all over again when she went back to New York to try to pick up the pieces.

She was starting to realize that places, like people, get under your skin and become a part of you. That you could leave them, but they changed you somehow, and you could never quite go back to being who you were before. That the dirt of a place under your fingernails was as powerful, as transformative, as any kiss.

She startled: there was someone else on the street, watching her. She could just barely make out the hunched form of Russell Benoit sitting behind the wheel of a dull brown Chevy. He'd followed her. He'd followed her to make sure she was getting the money. Then he'd
make his next move, Leigh knew. He'd come for the money. He wasn't taking any chances.

She'd be waiting.

She made the drive back to the winery looking in her rearview mirror the whole way. Russell was following her, but not too closely—he'd hang back from time to time, let other cars get between them for a couple of miles, then move up closer again. There was no need for him to be anxious. She'd done what he'd asked—picked up the cash—and it was clear she was headed back to the vineyard to meet with him. He was probably relaxed now, thinking of all the things he was going to buy with her grandfather's money. Money he didn't deserve.

Leigh's search for him on the Internet had turned up next to nothing, a few searches hit on white-pages websites, a single notice about Benoit's trial and sentencing in 2004, but no word about his crime. If only she had remembered to ask Jake what he knew before he left that last morning, she might have a better idea of what to do now. But aside from a quick text from Chloe late last night—
SIT TIGHT, GOT A COUPLE OF LEADS
—
there was still no sign of Jake.

Hurry up, Chloe, please.

Back at the winery Leigh turned down the long driveway toward the main house, watching in her rearview to see what Russell was going to do. While she parked Saundra's car in front of the conference center, Russell drove his brown Chevy down the road past the entrance to the winery and kept going, playing nonchalant, as if she hadn't known that he'd been following her all along. Whatever he was going to do, he wasn't going to do it right away. He was going to let her squirm a little bit first.

She ran into the office to give Saundra her keys and was heading up the hill, back to her own cottage, when she saw a man coming
down toward her: Jim Stephens, his gray eyes crinkling in the sun. “Hey there!” he said. “I was just looking for you. I thought I'd see if you wanted a ride to the airport.” He looked at the duffel in her hand, the one filled with a million in hundreds. “Is that all the luggage you brought?”

The airport—the conference was nearly over. She'd nearly forgotten. Leigh knew she'd have to go back home soon, but she couldn't think about that yet. She had one unpleasant task left to perform.

“I'm staying a little while yet,” she said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

He looked at the duffel in her hand, then up at her face. “You need help?”

Instinctively, Leigh clutched the duffel to her chest. “No—it's okay. It's not heavy.”

“I didn't mean the duffel.”

“I—I know,” she stammered. “I'm not sure you can help me. I'm not sure anyone can.”