As he held the door for her, he played back what she’d said, frustrated to realize he still didn’t know whether or not she had a husband, angry with himself for wanting to know. And damned if he was going to ask her.
“We’ll call the hotel,” he said, “as soon as we get settled in here. Take care of checking out. You’re probably going to want to have your things sent.” He reached for her tote bag, shrugged it onto his own shoulder. He did it unthinkingly, an automatic response to something he’d all but forgotten, like hearing a song he hadn’t thought of for years and discovering he still knew the words. “I can have somebody from headquarters take care of it for you, if you like.”
Again he felt her eyes flick at him, quickly and then away. “Thank you. I’ll try the hotel first. If there’s any problem…” She let her words trail off into nothing.
They were walking unhurried in the cold March night, the breeze damp and sea-smelly, the sandy pavement gritty underfoot. Jane suddenly shook herself and wrapped her arms across her body as if she was cold, but when she spoke it was in a soft, ecstatic voice, full of wonder and a fierce kind of joy. “How quiet it is here, have you noticed? No man-made sounds at all, only nature. And look how bright the stars are. It reminds me of when I was a child. the mountains…the desert… I wish-”
She would have left it there, but for some reason, not knowing why he did, he prompted her, “You wish…?”
She shrugged and laughed her low, self-deprecating signature laugh. “Oh, just that I guess I wish I’d known then how lovely it was-the desert, I mean. I hated it-fealty. I wanted to go…somewhere else. Anywhere else. And everywhere else. I wanted to see the whole world…backpack all over Europe, see London, Paris, Rome, Madrid. And I was so afraid I was never going to get to see any of it, except for that damn desert.”
“Well, there you go,” said Hawk gruffly. “See how wrong you were?”
“Yes…” But he thought she sounded sad. After a moment, in a different, lighter tone, she said, “This was one of the places I dreamed of going, do you know that? The outer islands…I’d read about the wild ponies, you see. And the Atlantic Ocean…wow, it seemed as far away as Mars.”
Restless and reaching for his cigarettes, he said dryly, “It’s okay now, I guess. Not so nice in the summertime. Sure as hell not quiet.”
He could feel her eyes touch him with that brightening look of hers. “Oh-have you been here before? Really?”
Kicking himself, he drew hard on his cigarette and exhaled with the answer. “Yeah, I’ve been here.”
He was here with his wife. As soon as the thought touched her mind, she knew it was true, just as she knew his wife must also be the childhood friend whose name he refused to speak. The friend and wife whose death had cast him into a lonely exile of grief from which he couldn’t seem to find his way back. How did she know? She just did. She knew.
Compassion filled her, spreading like Novocain through her heart so that she no longer felt her own pain. Softly, knowing what a risky thing it was, she asked, “Was it your honeymoon?”
He threw her a startled look, drew one last time on his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, extinguishing it with the toe of his shoe before walking on. She was surprised when he answered, and thought he was, too. “Not my honeymoon.” He laughed, a sound like the creaking of an old structure swaying in the wind. “We weren’t married, just…together.”
She held her breath, held back the questions she wanted to ask. It was a long time before he went on, almost as if she wasn’t there at all, and he was talking only to himself.
“This is where we decided to do it, finally. Decided to get married. We’d been together forever-since we were kids. We’d talked about it before, but…I guess we were both afraid of ruining a good thing.”
“What changed your mind?” Jane dared to ask, as softly as she knew how.
They were walking on a quiet street lined with picket fences, beneath the branches of enormous live oaks. She thought it was like being in some ancient, ruined cathedral, except that there was light now from some of the houses they passed, distant music, canned laughter from someone’s TV.
“Children,” said Tom, after she’d given up hope of an answer. “We decided, since we both wanted kids, we should get married first.”
“You have children?”
Unable to trust his voice, Hawk only nodded, knowing she’d misunderstand.
It had been a long time since he’d hurt this bad, not since those first terrible weeks and months, after the shock had worn off and before he’d learned other ways to numb the pain. Part of him wanted to hate the woman beside him, this woman whose gentle insistence was like a dentist’s probe on an exposed nerve. But he couldn’t. He knew he could have put an end to her probing, could have cut her down as he’d cut down so many before her, coldly, cleanly, bloodlessly as a surgeon’s scalpel. But he didn’t.
And when she fell silent for a time, he was bewildered to find that there was a part of him that was sorry.
They’d come back to the highway, the lights of the motel he’d telephoned from the ferry terminal visible up ahead of them, before she spoke again. It was late and cold; few people were still out and about She was hugging herself, and he imagined she must be shivering. So he was surprised by the softness, the easiness of her voice when she said, “You must have lovely memories of this place.”
Memories? Memories weren’t lovely, they were his enemies. But…yes, he remembered the little house they’d rented, he and Jen. They’d spent the weekend walking hand in hand on the beach, looking for shells, strolling the unpaved street under the great old oaks, looking at gravestones in the family cemeteries. They’d been like children playing house. They’d fought some and laughed some and made love in the quiet afternoons.
He reached for his cigarettes instead of answering.
“You should treasure them,” she went on, her voice sighing gently across his auditory nerves. “I always think that good memories are like beloved keepsakes. You put them away and keep them safe-but not buried so deeply you can’t get at them when you need them. They don’t cause you pain, they bring you pleasure. Sometimes a little sadness, too, when you bring them out and look at them. But you’d never want to lose them, and you wouldn’t trade them for gold or diamonds.”
He could only nod, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. Unable to look at the woman beside him, he plunged ahead of her, across the street and into the brightly lit motel lobby.
Jane insisted on registering separately, paying with her own credit card, though he’d offered to put it on his expense voucher. They had adjoining rooms on the second floor, his smoking, hers non. They smiled through the formalities, chatting with the desk clerk but not with each other.
They climbed the stairs together in silence, Hawk once again carrying the tote bag. He waited while she unlocked her door and turned on a light, then stuck his head in for a cursory check of the room before he handed over her bag.
She thanked him in a polite, expressionless murmur, then cleared her throat and said, “Um, what time do I need to be ready in the morning?”
“Plane should be ready to go at eight.” His voice was like a cement mixer full of rocks. “I’ll knock on your door at seven-we can go get a bite first, if you want to. Need a wake-up call?”
She shook her head and held up her bag. “I have my little travel alarm.”
Absolutely devoid of makeup, her mouth looked vulnerable as a child’s. Looking at her. Hawk felt something inside him begin to loosen, to ease and soften, like a balloon that had been filled to the danger point slowly deflating. He had a sudden urge to touch her. And then he did, even though he knew it wasn’t wise.