Unforgiven (17 page)

It hurt, that he’d give her such a beautiful gift as the day of sun and water and wind, but not himself.

Do you want him to give himself, then leave? Because he will. Live in this moment. It’s enough.

She pulled on her nightgown and went to sit by the window, using the towel to dry her hair, then her brush to finish the job, pulling the bristles through the strands in stroke after stroke as she looked out over the skyline and the enigmatic darkness of the lake beyond.

15

S
HE AWOKE THE
next morning in a burrow of down comforter, sheets, pillows, not completely sure where she was. A rough fingertip stroked the sensitive skin and delicate hairs at her nape, raising a shiver completely unrelated to the air temperature and calling her from the sleep of the dead. She rolled toward daylight and tugged the sheet down to peer out. The cream paint and apple green valance oriented her. A hotel room. Chicago. Sailing.

Adam.

He lay beside her, head braced on his hand, the sheet at his waist, his dark hair, tanned skin, and hazel eyes vivid against the sea of white around them. Under the sheet he traced a line from her nape to her tailbone and back. “Sore?” he asked.

Shifting her weight fired her muscles, reminding her that a day of sailing used different muscles than a day of construction work. She was indeed sore but she wouldn’t admit to it in the cold light of day.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said as she lifted herself on her elbows to look over his shoulder at the clock. “It’s eight o’clock!” she yelped.

A firm hand between her shoulder blades pushed her back to the mattress. “Do you have to be somewhere?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

His hand left her back to tuck her tumbled, sleep-warmed hair behind her ear, but his face didn’t change. “Whatever you want, Ris,” he said softly. “We can play it by ear. I just need to give the pilot a couple of hours’ notice before we leave so he can file a flight plan.”

She reached for something casual, informal, something that wouldn’t feel like too much. “Let’s start with something simple. Breakfast. Maybe just coffee.” She pushed back the covers and got to her feet but ruined her easygoing approach by wincing when her muscles protested. Limping only slightly, she made it to the coffee pot sitting on a tray on top of the mini-fridge and grabbed the small glass pot.

“Halt.”

She halted and looked at him.

“We’re in a city, Marissa, a real city with real coffee shops. We’re not drinking watery instant swill from a packet on the minibar. Go take another hot shower. We’ll get coffee while we’re sightseeing.”

“I don’t need another shower,” she protested.

“Fine, tough girl. Stand up straight.”

She tried, and winced as things cracked.

He lifted one eyebrow. “The heat will loosen your muscles.”

“You’re bossy when you’re right.”

Humor flickered across his face. “It’s called ‘command presence,’ and I’ve got it when I’m wrong, too,” he said. “Go on.”

She secured her hair in a topknot so she wouldn’t waste time drying it again, and stretched under the warm spray, felt her muscles loosen and ease. Fifteen minutes later she was dry, her teeth brushed, and dressed in her jeans, sweater, and the deck shoes. She brushed her hair into loose waves, then secured it low on her nape with her barrette. Back in his cargo pants and windbreaker, Adam brushed his teeth while she packed. After a quick conference with the concierge to pick up a Chicago tourism booklet and identify an acceptable coffee shop for her coffee snob, they strolled through the sumptuous lobby, down Adams Street to Michigan Avenue, then along Millennium Park to a sleek coffee shop called Intelligentsia, where Adam snagged the last copy of the
Chicago Sun-Times
and they waited in line.

“What on earth are all these choices?” Marissa said under her breath.

“Coffee,” he said, the word vibrating with satisfaction and anticipation as he folded the laminated street map and tucked it in his back pocket. “Unburnt coffee. Different roasts, different beans from different parts of the world.”

She chose a large dark roast, with room, and a cranberry muffin from the case. Adam got an enormous blueberry muffin and his own cup of coffee, no room. They settled into a table by the windows. Adam pulled the Auto section from the paper and pushed the rest of it across the table to Marissa.

She sipped the coffee, then blinked. “Oh my God,” she said.

Humor glimmered in his eyes. “I know. You can get a bag to go so you can treat yourself at home. Just ask them to grind it for you.”

She did exactly that, looking around as she waited, automatically comparing her jacket, jeans, and deck shoes to what the other women in the shop wore. The tourists were easily identified by their Chicago sweatshirts or windbreakers, while the women she guessed were residents carried brown bags with gold letters in the leather and wore scarves draped in a variety of ways. In her sailing jacket and shoes she didn’t look out of place. Like no one knew that twenty-four hours earlier she’d woken up in South Dakota.

Engrossed in the paper, elbows braced on his knees, Adam sat by the window, completely at home.

“Have you been here before?” she asked while she tucked the coffee into her tote bag.

“No,” he said.

“How do you know where to go?”

“The Marine Corps taught me how to find things,” he said casually. “If I can find my way through gullies in Helmand Province at night, I can find a coffee shop on clearly marked streets in broad damn daylight.”

“I can’t believe I’m here,” she said. “I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Chicago, drinking the best coffee I’ve ever had, and deciding what to do with my day. Is this real?”

“I’m doing the same thing,” Adam said, his gaze back on the newspaper, “so we’re either hallucinating together or it’s real.”

“Can I try your muffin?”

Still focused on all things automotive, he pushed the plate across the table to her. She broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth, then flipped through the sections of the newspaper. Arts and Leisure caught her eye, so she pulled it out of the stack and opened it. Articles about the ballet; two concerts, one pop, one classical; a traveling dance troupe; and a new exhibit at the Art Institute. The tourism booklet boasted some of the world’s best shopping along the Magnificent Mile. She flipped to the map, found their location, and smiled.

“We can do whatever I want?”

He nodded.

“Here’s the plan. I want to go to the Art Institute, but it doesn’t open for a couple of hours, so until then I want to walk along Michigan Avenue. We can window-shop and look at the architecture.”

She wasn’t sure how a US Marine would feel about shopping, followed by a museum to see Impressionist art, but the odd light in his eyes matched the half smile on his face when he nodded again, then pulled the map from his back pocket and slid it across the table to her. “Want a coffee to go?”

“Better make it decaf,” she said and stepped outside to orient herself.

He stuffed her tote bag in his larger backpack, then shouldered it. They opted for the sunny side of the street for the stroll up Michigan Avenue. They crossed the river, stopping on the span to study the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower.

“They don’t make buildings like that anymore,” Marissa said. “Ornate, elaborate, meant to represent a company or a place’s history and give it a sense of permanence.”

Adam leaned his elbows on the bridge railing, his sharp eyes taking in the buildings lining the river as he spoke. “Maybe that’s what’s different between now and then. We know nothing lasts forever.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.” She sipped her coffee, then pointed at the bas-relief sculptures on the granite pillars supporting either end of the bridge. “That effort is worth honoring.”

His gaze turned to hers, the sharpness tempered with understanding. “There’s a difference between honoring something and sacrificing yourself for it.”

She just lifted her eyebrows at him. The sun streamed along the river, a winding path of water and light through the towers of stone and glass nearly surrounding them.

He straightened and reached for her hand. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

She let him lead her off the bridge and into the thick of the Magnificent Mile’s upscale shopping. The windows fascinated her, works of art in fabric and color, impossibly thin mannequins dressed in impractical clothes. “Your mother would love this,” she said absently, because the Banana Republic window caught her eye. Adam said nothing when she pushed through the doors, just followed her inside to a long wood table covered with a dusky fabric.

What appeared on the model to be a thin scarf was actually a large wrap, approximately six feet long by three feet wide, saved from bulkiness by the thin silk fabric. One side started a dark, midnight blue, the color paling through twilight and periwinkle to summer sky blue. The other side was a single shade of grayish blue, or bluish gray. The colors were an exact match for the range of sky she saw on Lake Michigan the day before. Embroidered triangular shapes resembling sailboats quilted the two pieces of fabric together.

Her heart hiccupped as she looked at it.

“Pretty,” Adam said beside her.

It was the most beautiful item of clothing she’d ever seen, meant to be worn over a sleeveless dress to a fancy party, and therefore completely impractical for a construction worker in Walkers Ford, South Dakota. She stroked it with her index finger anyway. The fabric was so fine she registered the sensation of coolness before she felt silk. The price tags were all carefully turned over so only the Banana Republic logo showed, not the actual cost, and when she turned one over she knew why. Three hundred dollars. She turned the tag back over so it matched all the others at the edge of the mahogany table and stepped back.

“Try it on,” Adam said.

“There’s nothing to try on,” she replied lightly and took another step back, right into Adam, warm, solid, and unmoving. “One size fits all.”

He reached around her and unzipped her jacket. “Humor me.”

He draped her jacket over a chair next to a long, single mirror, then picked up the nearest scarf. For something so large it weighed almost nothing, like the wind. He gathered the fabric and draped it behind her neck, then caught the trailing end and pulled it around and behind. The graduated colors shifted like waves, and the pewter backing was the exact color of a stormy sky. Her hair was caught under the wrap, and as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“It’s not for me,” she replied and unwound it from around her neck. It was for all the sophisticated women living in Chicago, getting their coffee at Intelligentsia and going to the Art Institute every weekend.

“Why not?”

“Where would I wear that?”

“You’re always cold,” he reasoned. “Wear it to weddings and funerals and everything between. Hell, wear it to watch TV. Sleep with it.”

The thought of her wearing Polartec pajamas, fleece-lined slippers, and a silk wrap in all the shades of Chicago to watch reruns of
Ice Road Truckers
made her laugh. “I’m too old for security blankets, and I don’t need it,” she said and flipped it back onto the table like she’d flip a top sheet onto the bed. Silk fluttered through the air toward the table. “That’s good because I can’t afford it, either.”

He watched the fabric settle into stillness, then looked at her, an indecipherable look in his eyes. She broke the stare and picked up her empty coffee cup from the floor. “Did you see a trash can anywhere?”

“By the door. I’m going to find a bathroom. I’ll meet you down there. The museum’s open.”

She threw the cup away, then watched people walk across the street, merging and separating on their separate ways. It was about timing, she decided as she waited for Adam. When they stepped off the curb, their speed and direction. Sometimes they made it to the sidewalk without dodging someone. Sometimes they didn’t.

Timing was everything.

Adam came up behind her, the backpack over his shoulder. “Ready?”

They didn’t linger on the trip back to the Art Institute. As they waited in line for tickets, Marissa got her wallet from her purse.

“Put that away,” Adam said.

She turned and looked up into his face. In close quarters and flat shoes she realized how much shorter she was. “Please,” she said quietly. “Let this be my treat.”

His gaze searched hers for a second, then, to her surprise, he put his wallet away and kissed her. “Thank you,” he said.

She smiled, ridiculously pleased. “My pleasure.”

They stored their bags and jackets in the coat check. The galleries were an education in themselves. She lingered in the Impressionist rooms, then found Adam in the Architecture and Design galleries. They had lunch in the small cafeteria. She chose food she’d never had before, asparagus quiche and a rich chocolate torte for dessert. The gift shop took another hour as they browsed through books before she chose a magnet, bookmarks, and splurged on a couple of books. Sunshine lifted the temperatures above normal, so they spent the afternoon wandering through Millennium Park until Adam called the pilot and set a departure time.

“We have to leave,” she said.

He nodded, and stepped to the curb to hail a cab. This time she knew what to expect and got back in the plane a seasoned traveler. Takeoff was smooth as silk, but the descent through the thick clouds into Sioux Falls left her gripping Adam’s hand hard enough to leave dents in his skin. The ride back to Walkers Ford was quiet, Marissa sorting through her memories, slowly but surely returning to reality, because the wedding was now less than a week away. They turned down the road that led to Walkers Ford, the lights of the town visible to the south, and Brookhaven’s silhouette barely visible a mile down the road.

The weekend away, as short as it was, only convinced her of two truths. She was home, and he would leave.

“Why do that for me?” she asked.

The only sound in the car was the thwack of the windshield wipers and the modern rock station, on low since they left Sioux Falls. Then he said, “Because you’re drowning, Ris. I’m just trying to throw you a life preserver.”

“I’m not drowning. I’m rooted,” she said, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew she was lying. Lying to him. Lying to herself. “Do you think I’ll somehow figure out a way to cancel all my debts and pull up over a hundred years of roots and leave South Dakota forever? One day on a boat doesn’t make me a sailor any more than reading every book ever written about sailing does.”