Chapter 21

 

I couldn’t answer his questions, neither then nor later that night when I called to see how he was. The conversation was short. He was still at the office. And I was discouraged. Baby or no baby, the rift between us had widened again. I was starting to wonder whether I ought to give in, go back to New York for good, and just let him do what he wanted. My escape wouldn’t be wasted. I would do things differently if I returned. In that sense, I was safe.

The baby changed things. I couldn’t stay apart from James now. And I did love him.

But I couldn’t force him to change. If he was to get to the place where I was, he had to do it himself.

There was one glimmer of hope. He continued to be interested in Lee’s case. I didn’t know whether he was just angry enough to defy his firm, or whether he simply needed a small victory of his own, but he pushed his investigator hard.

And the man was good. By Thursday morning, he had linked Rocco Fleming to Duane Cray, the younger brother of Lee’s late husband. There were no incriminating phone calls between them; that would have been too obvious. But the cell Rocco had been carrying at the time of his arrest was registered to a small construction company owned by Duane. Conclusive evidence? No. Rocco might have stolen the phone. But it was a mighty strange coincidence.

Passing the information to the Manchester police, James felt a deep satisfaction. It gave resonance to his voice when he called me afterward, and I savored the sound, particularly when a very different one came the next day.

Friday afternoon. Two-forty. I had just processed a check-in and was refolding a map of the town for a pair of newbies, when my cell vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. As the guests walked off, I pulled it out.

The first things I heard were honking horns and James swearing.

Then he muttered, “Sorry. People are so friggin’ impatient. They can honk all they want, but if I can’t move and the car in front of me can’t move, what in the hell do they want us to do?”

“Where are you going?” I asked. Out to lunch was something neither of us ever did unless the lunch was work-related, which I assumed this was.

I heard another volley of horns.

“What is going on there, James?”

He exhaled loudly. “Know something? I’m too irritated to explain. I’m sending an e-mail.”

He clicked off before I could do much more than process his irritation, leaving me to wonder whether it was me he was angry at or the traffic, the city, even his cabbie.

His e-mail was the forward of one he had received two hours earlier, sent from the management of his law firm. I read it twice. Staggered, I called him. “A freeze on naming new partners? But this is your year.” Any lawyer would understand the relevance of that.

“Tell it to the judge,” James muttered.

“They named twelve partners last year. How can they not name a single one now?”

“You saw the e-mail. They say they can’t afford it. What they’re not saying is that they could afford it if they put a freeze on their own incomes, but of course they won’t do that, the selfish bastards.”

I was livid. “Does Mark agree with this?”

“Mark? Oh, listen. This—this is rich. I get the e-mail, and the first thing I do is go to his office, and he’s gone. For. The. Weekend. Same with Rhine, Hutchins, and McAdams,” three other senior partners with whom James worked. “So I try Mark’s cell. Of course, he doesn’t pick up. I keep calling every two minutes until he does, and I go through all the arguments about how I’ve been promised this—I’ve worked my tail off for it. I even said my wife was pregnant. Know what he said? He didn’t say a damn thing about the pregnancy—no congratulations, no Great news, James. He said that if I kept up my hours, I’d be a shoo-in for partner next year. Another fuckin’ year of this pressure?”

There were three sharp honks that punctuated his words too perfectly to have been made by a cabbie. “Are you driving?” I asked, suddenly seeing that.

“You bet I am.” His tone was rash now. “I’m outta here. I need a break.”

Déjà vu, I thought, but for James this time. “Where are you going?” I asked with a taste of the alarm he must have felt when he had received my note four weeks before.

“I’m going to see my wife. By the way,” he added, “they had Rocco Fleming in court an hour ago. He waived extradition. They’ll transfer him Monday morning.”

Traffic was bad, which didn’t improve James’s mood. He called me every few minutes to vent, and I was totally sympathetic. I didn’t talk about it being the start of a weekend at the height of summer, and when he spent an hour at a standstill, waiting for an accident to be cleared from the Hutchinson, I didn’t raise the issue of who might have been hurt. He knew all these things. His upset about the partnership was coloring everything else. I understood that.

By the time he reached Bell Valley, it was nearly ten. I was sitting in the dark on the front steps of the Red Fox, looking in the direction of the covered bridge. When headlights finally appeared, I rose. I was in the parking lot, at his door, when the car came to a stop.

I couldn’t make out his expression, but when he climbed out, he held me for a long time. Drawing back, he touched my belly. We didn’t talk. I imagined that if he had tried, he would have repeated too many words. Shouldering his bag, he slung his other arm around me as we walked to the gardener’s shed.

We didn’t make love. He was quickly asleep. I lay awake watching him for a time, thinking that he had taken a page from my book and wondering what this latest twist would mean. Then I fell asleep as well.

I swear, the coyotes knew what was going on. They let us sleep for several hours, just enough to take the edge off, before starting to howl. James bolted up.

“Coyotes,” I whispered in explanation.

His eyes shot to the window. “Where?”

“Up the trail a little.”

Dropping back to the pillow, he listened. They didn’t go on very long, only long enough to make sure we were awake enough to make love, and it was exquisitely sweet, even extraordinarily romantic to pleasure each other to the sound of the coyotes’ serenade. There was no fierce physicality now. James kept things slow and controlled, though whether because of the baby or his need to stop the world, I didn’t know.

The final yips were fading into the distance when, in the last throes of passion, we sank back to the bed. We didn’t talk then, either. James simply pulled me close and held me until we were both asleep again.

I would have given anything to sleep in. I wasn’t feeling great, and James was reassuringly solid beside me. But I needed toast to settle my stomach, and besides, Vicki wasn’t magically better simply because James had arrived. The inn was full for the weekend. She needed my help. And James would sleep for a while.

So I ran over to the kitchen and nibbled toast while I set up for breakfast. Since no one would be checking out on a Saturday, I stayed to replenish the buffet and visit with guests. By the time I returned to the room with breakfast, it was nearly eleven. James was sitting up in bed, studying his BlackBerry.

If I’d had a camera, I’d have snapped a shot, though it could never have done him justice. The sheet was carelessly bunched at his hips, which I knew to be bare beneath. Dark hair fell on his brow and brushed the tops of his ears, and hair swirled on his chest. His shoulders weren’t heavily muscled, though they had a natural breadth. Strong hands, long fingers, memories of where they had touched me hours before—my breath caught.

“Hey,” he said, looking up.

I smiled. Putting the tray on a flat portion of sheet, I poured him a cup of coffee. Then, careful not to tip the tray, I sat beside him. Our arms touched, skin to skin. From this vantage point, I could see a full BlackBerry screen. “Anything interesting?”

“Tony is threatening to sue. Samantha wants to leave.” Both, like James, had expected partnerships in October. “Tom McKenna wants to know where I am. He’s a mid-level partner. They just put me on one of his cases.”

“Did you answer him?”

“Yup. I said I was away for the weekend. There’s also a plea for help from the associate they put on the Bryant case. She doesn’t know what in the hell she’s doing. I told her I’m not on the case anymore and that she should talk with Derek Moore.”

I leaned into him. “Good for you.”

“Not if they tell me to screw myself,” he said on a grim note. “Your walking out was different from mine. We can deal with one of us not working, but two?”

“We can get other jobs if we want.”

“None of the firms are hiring.”

“Not in New York, but maybe elsewhere, and maybe not in a firm. Maybe we have to open our mind to other possibilities.”

“With you pregnant?” The BlackBerry dinged. He thumbed to his in-box and smiled. “Your dad.”

“My dad?” I asked in alarm.

“Yeah. We’ve been going back and forth. The poor guy’s been worried about you. Wait’ll he hears about me.”

“Don’t tell him! He’ll have a coronary!”

James snorted. “He isn’t the only one. My parents have never rebelled against anything in their lives. But hell, it’s not like I’m leaving the firm. I’m just taking the weekend off.”

He looked at me. I might have argued that a weekend wasn’t long enough, not for the kind of thinking we needed to do, that nothing would change if he was back at his desk Monday morning.

But I was silent. Right here, right now, we were a couple again. I wasn’t risking another rift, wasn’t wasting this precious time.

So we played. Since he had already seen the town center, I showed him the scenic outskirts—a ravine filled with blue lupines, a woodsy path that rose to a breathtaking outcropping of rocks. Solicitous, he helped me over slippery stretches, taking his cue from me that the baby was fine. In time, we found ourselves in a six-table café at a crossroads just south of Bell Valley, desperate for iced drinks after hiking to a lookout several miles down the road.

“The truth,” James said once the worst of our thirst had been slaked. “Last time, you were here with Jude.”

“Sure was.” I grinned, refusing to be put on the defensive where Jude was concerned. “Aren’t you glad? Most people don’t know about this place—or about the lookout or the ravine. He was a great guide. Now you and I have our own mark on them.”

“Just for the weekend,” he cautioned quietly.

I nodded. “That’s all.”

“We can’t both be unemployed.”

“I know.”

“I do have to go back—”

I pressed my hand to his mouth. “Our escape—just a little longer?”

He used his BlackBerry twice that day. The first was in an exchange with Sean, who forwarded a note from his accountant. Having followed the trail of trust disbursements to an investment firm in Panama, she had hit a wall. Sean told her to keep at it, but she warned that it would take time.

James wasn’t patient, hence his second exchange, this one with his own man, who had ways of getting information under the table.

What had happened at the firm made him feel powerless. This was one way of countering it, but his frustration remained. A little line between his brows came and went, came and went. I saw it, but didn’t comment. I did want this to be our escape.

We heard the coyotes again that night. Their howls lulled us to sleep, but I was awake again at dawn, thinking of the sound. Coyotes also made yips and barks, but howls, Jude said, were a gathering call. I might be crazy, but I couldn’t shake the sense that they were calling for us—and as escapes went, what could be better?

It was a beautiful Sunday morning—dry, clear, cool—and James had been sleeping since nine the night before. So I woke him, pulled a sweatshirt over his head while he pulled on sweatpants, and led him past the old wood gate, over the rotted post, and through the ferns. We followed the old stone wall, passed the grandfather oak and the granite arch.

Between our passage and the slow spread of daylight, the woods were starting to waken. Tiny bodies scurried out from the undergrowth; birds flew off to look for seeds. Catching a small movement, I stopped, but it was a minute before I spotted a doe and two fawns, carefully camouflaged as they munched on a wild shrub. Silent, I pointed them out to James. They stared at us for a breathtaking second longer before bounding off.

By the time we heard the brook, sunlight was gilding the tops of the trees. I dropped my head back and inhaled. Of all the rich and earthy scents, the strongest was serenity. I didn’t look back to see if James felt it. His hold of my hand was relaxed, his fingers warm in a way that went beyond the physical.

The water flowed downstream in reflections of blues, golds, and browns. Settling on the bank, watching the far side, we listened for sounds above the gurgle. In time, as though they had been waiting for us, they appeared.

“How did you know they’d come?” James whispered.

“They know when I’m here. We have a meeting of minds.”

He shot me an amused look that I felt more than saw, since I was keeping my eye on the far side of the stream. “Look,” I said softly. “The pups. They’re bigger each time I see them. The den must be nearby.”

“Is this safe?”

“Our being here? Absolutely.”

“They won’t attack?”

“No. They know me. You’re with me, so you get a pass.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. They know my scent. Besides, coyotes don’t eat people. They don’t even eat housecats when they can get things like mice, squirrels, and rabbits. Where do you think all those aging rodents go? It’s about the food chain.”

“What about aging coyotes?”

“Bear.”

“If they aren’t shot first by sheep farmers.”

“Coyotes only eat sheep when they have nothing else. They also eat insects and fruit.”

“And garbage. That’s what the ones in Manhattan get into.”

“Not their favorite meal. But they adapt. They do what they have to do to survive.”

“See, that’s what we need to do,” he said, “find a way to survive in New York.”

“Or relocate to a place more suited to our needs.”

He paused. “Is this the pitch?”

“No,” I said. “But I do identify with the coyote.”

“A coyote is a wild animal. We’re domesticated. We think.”

“Maybe too much.” I glanced back at the fat pine against which our child might well have been conceived. “A little wildness is good.”

I wanted to think a part of him agreed, but he looked troubled as he continued to watch the coyotes.

“What,” I coaxed. I felt safe here, buffered from reality.

“Look at them, just tumbling around. Their lives are simple. I envy that.”

“Why do ours have to be complex?”

“Because we’re human. Because our food chain is complex.”

“Ours isn’t about survival,” I said. “It’s about ego.”

Another coyote appeared. Slightly larger than the mom, it sat by the trunk of a tree, watching us. I guessed it to be the dad.

“The whole family, out havin’ fun,” James quipped.

“Like us,” I said, and kissed his jaw.

“About the ego thing, babe—are you saying that’s what drives me?”

“I’m asking it, and it’s not only you, James. I’m just as bad.”

“But ego has to do with self-esteem, which is good.”

“Do you get self-esteem from your work? I don’t. Do you get it from the friendships you have in New York?” His silence said it. “Some people get self-esteem from technology,” I continued, “like if they master it, they’ve mastered the world. Not me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself in this last month, it’s that I do not get happiness from all that. I love you, James. Love you. But the rest of what I was doing is … is like spinning. I sit in a room of thirty people I don’t know, and I pedal faster and faster to keep pace, but when I’m done, I haven’t moved an inch. Okay, I can check off exercise as done, but do I walk home smiling in satisfaction? No.” I took a quick breath and softened, pleading. “I do smile when I help Vicki. I get satisfaction helping Lee. And the Refuge. I feel good there. I want you to see that, too, sometime.”

I left it open. If he was heading back today, I wanted him to choose what to do before he left. It was enough that I had dragged him into the woods to see my coyotes.

The Refuge was my priority. Sleep was his. He got several more hours while I helped set up for brunch at the Red Fox. When I returned to the shed late in the morning with a tray, he was just getting out of the shower. I half expected he would be wearing slacks, readying for the drive straight back to the office. But no. A T-shirt and jeans. That was a good sign. Likewise, when he carried the tray outside so that we could eat on the bench facing the woods.

He was the one who suggested going to the Refuge—perhaps appeasing me in advance of his leaving, but he actually seemed curious about the place. I could see his surprise at its size and spread, could see him lift his head to sniff horse and hay when we got out of the car.

“Who are all these people?” he asked, studying the sign-in sheet when I added our names.

“Volunteers. They pretty much run the place on weekends. Some are up for the day from Concord and Portsmouth. Others just stop off on their way elsewhere. Guests at the Red Fox stay longer.”

He stopped out back to read the weather vane of lopsided signs, looked around in alarm when a loud bray came sudden and close, but I led him to the cats first. I wanted him to see where I spent so much of my time, but I also felt a need to see my friends, and I swear, the cats did know me. They came without pause, hungry for scratches and rubs, though there were other volunteers around. Talk about ego. Mine soared. When I shot James a satisfied grin, he actually laughed.

“You are such a bleeding heart,” he said in a good-natured way that would never, never have happened two weeks before. And it was the same when I took him to Rehab. “How much time have you spent here?” he teased when the cats crowded in.

“Not that much,” I assured him, stroking the massive Maine coon that had plopped down by my thigh, minus a leg but so much sturdier than my kitten had been. I told him about her, how she had wobbled to me, how she had died in my arms, and though he couldn’t possibly feel my emotion, he stroked my arm when I was through.

Sensing my affinity for these particular cats, he gave me time, wandering out while I stayed to freshen water. He didn’t keep poking his head back in to see if I was ready to leave. He wasn’t even waiting right outside the door. I had to go looking for him, one bungalow to the next, asking about a tall, dark-haired guy wearing a blue Gold’s Gym tee.

I finally found him behind one of the dog huts, leaning against the wire mesh of a large, open-air pen. Curling my fingers by his on the mesh, I watched beside him.

“I never had a pet growing up,” he finally said.

“Did you want one?”

“Every kid wants one. The house was too small, my parents said. We had no yard. They both worked. It sounded right. I didn’t learn the truth until I was home for college vacation and out on the front walk, talking with neighbors who had just moved in next door. They had a spaniel puppy. It was small and jumpy. Mom backed away and hurried into the house.”

“Scared of dogs?” I asked in surprise.

“Terrified. She told me that when she was little, she’d been chased by a dalmatian. Sad to base a phobia on one experience. I mean, look at these dogs.” Several had approached us. He lowered his hand so that they could nose it. “They aren’t wild. They’re homeless. How can you not feel for them?”

I leaned into him.

“Oh no,” he warned. “We don’t know where in the hell we’ll be living in six months. Now is not the time to get a dog.”

“I know,” I said, though with regret. “And these dogs will find homes. The Refuge places hundreds every year.”

“Look at that one.”

I followed his gaze to a distant corner of the pen, where a dog sat alone. It was midsize and heavily furred, with a black body and white markings on its chest and face.

“It’s an Australian shepherd,” James said. “I had a friend who had one. They need a ton of exercise, but I’ve been here for fifteen minutes and that dog hasn’t moved. He’s frightened. Look, see his eyes?” They grew especially fearful when a man emerged from the hut. “He’s been abused.” When the man approached, the dog shied away, then bolted off. “What’ll happen to a dog like that?”

“They’ll work with him,” I said. “He’ll stay here as long as it takes, but they’ll find him a home.”

“They have their work cut out for them with that one.”

“Mm. But totally rewarding when they break through.”

James wasn’t about to suddenly crave a dog. But something about breakthroughs, satisfaction, or self-esteem must have been in play, because he didn’t pack up and head to New York Sunday night—though he did set his BlackBerry to ding at four Monday morning, so that he could do it then. When the alarm rang, though, he turned it off, pulled me close, and went back to sleep.

I left him sleeping while I worked at the inn, but I was back with him at nine. He had just e-mailed Mark that he wouldn’t be in. At least, not in the office in New York. Rocco Fleming was due in Manchester-by-the-Sea by noon and would be interviewed at the police station. We wanted to be there.