Chapter 21 Beacon
BEACON
We walked side by side on the path that led from the main camp, past the boathouse, to the shore.
The sky was clear, and there was enough moonlight to see where we were going.
It was cold, but I didn’t care. I welcomed feeling it.
Feeling everything. I hadn’t realized how much of my life I’d spent numb.
I’d almost died here a couple of hours ago. Other than being in a building with bombs detonating around me and a beam pinning me to the floor after the roof collapsed, tonight was the closest I’d come to facing death.
Bishop saved me both times, and that’s what I wanted to remember. That I was still living.
The other reason I wanted to walk down to where it had happened tonight was to stare it in the face and let it go. Kind of like climbing right back on a horse after being thrown.
I would not allow Nikolai Vasiliev to haunt me here. This camp was part of my legacy, and for the first time, I knew this was where I belonged. It was my home.
The trees thinned, and the lake opened in front of us. The water was black and still, with a line of silver on it from the dock to the island.
I stopped where I’d gone down on my knees earlier.
The sand had been raked. There was no body and no boat and no sign that anything had happened here.
Bishop stood by me, holding my one hand while his other arm was around my shoulders.
“I want to start my life over. Here. Tonight. Like a rebirth.”
He studied me but didn’t speak.
“I want you to be part of that life, Bishop. If you want to.”
He smiled and cuddled me close. “I didn’t practically jump off the second level of the boathouse to save your life just to let you go live it with someone else.”
He took my right hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed the ring I’d worn on my third finger since the day my babushka passed away.
“It fits you,” he said. “Not just in size. It’s more like it was made for you.”
I looked down at it. I’d never been a woman who noticed jewelry.
But my grandmother’s ring was impossible to ignore.
The band was blackened metal, the setting intricate and worn from decades on my grandmother’s hand.
The center stone was an alexandrite—Russian, like my grandfather.
In daylight, it ran cool and dark. By firelight, it shifted to a deep, smoky violet.
Small green stones flanked it on both sides.
Mikhail Stepanov had brought it from Russia when he was posted to the Soviet Embassy in London. A family piece, maybe the only one that survived. He’d given it to my grandmother before they married, and she’d never taken it off. I never would either.
“You said you want to start over.” Bishop kissed both my eyelids. “Here.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Tonight.” I expected my lips to be next, but he went to each cheek instead. “With me.”
“I did.”
“Then, marry me—let everything after this moment be the genesis of us.”
“Our genesis,” I said.
“That’s right. What do you think of the idea?”
“It’s the best one I’ve ever heard.”
He lifted my right hand and slid the ring off. “I’d never find anything more perfect to propose with,” he said as he slipped it on my left.
“I wouldn’t want any other one.”
“Kitten?”
“Bishop?”
“Say, yes.”
“Yes, let’s get married.” I smiled. “I have one request, though. Actually two.”
“Anything,” he said, pulling me so my body was flush with his.
“I want to go away.”
He leaned far enough that he could look in my eyes. “You said you had two requests.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
Bishop rested his forehead against mine. “That’s the second best idea I’ve ever heard.”
We were halfway up the path when I stopped and turned around. I looked at the shore. From now on, it would be the place where Bishop and I decided to marry. It was the only memory I’d have of it.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked when we were almost to Ohkwari.
I shivered. “Somewhere warm.”
We took a few more steps before he answered. “My parents have a house on the water in the Bahamas. It sits on a cove with a private beach.”
“Your parents?”
“They won’t be there. This time of year, they’re at their place in California.”
“So it would be just us?”
He nodded and wriggled his eyebrows. “Us alone with a private beach.”
“When can we leave?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Maybe we should wait until after the briefing.”
Bishop stuck out his lower lip like he was pouting. “Okay, but the minute it ends, we’re on our way.”
“I have never taken a regular vacation. Not as an adult. I can’t remember the last time I went somewhere for the purpose of doing nothing.”
“We’ll make this your first.”
“I have a lot of those with you. First cry that I remember, first time being in love.”
“We have a lifetime ahead of us to fill with firsts.”
I fell asleep moments after we climbed into bed and didn’t wake until the sun was up. The bed was empty beside me, but I could hear Bishop in the other room.
He was sitting at the table when I came out, wearing his flannel shirt, with big sheets of paper spread out in front of him. I kissed his cheek on my way to pour myself coffee.
“Good morning, kitten.”
“Are those the plans for Orenda?” I asked.
He motioned me over, and I sat on his lap.
“The great room goes up the full height of both floors with open trusses and a stone hearth that runs floor to ceiling. The entire lake wall is glass from the sill to the peak, and the kitchen opens off the east end with its own view of the water. There are two bedrooms on this floor. One is on the south side, and another opens to the back garden. A porch runs across the entire front.”
He slid the first sheet aside. “This is for the second level. The primary suite fills the north wing upstairs, with the same orientation as Ohkwari and the same morning light off the lake. There’s a study on one side and a smaller bedroom on the other.
Then, in the back are more rooms that can be used for whatever we’d want them to be. ”
“What’s that?” I asked, tapping the sheet near the north side of the suite.
“A sleeping porch. It’s one of my favorite things in the plans.”
“It’s big.”
Bishop chuckled. “I don’t know the square footage of the main camp, but this appears to be equal to it or more.”
“Anna told me once that my grandfather and Horatio were very competitive. It wouldn’t surprise me if he instructed the architect to make sure it was larger.” The thought made me smile. “She said that, even though they argued endlessly, they were closer than any two brothers.”
“Sounds like Kingston and me.” Bishop shifted me off his lap, and we both stood. “Breakfast here or in the main camp?”
“Here today? Just the two of us? I can help.”
He kissed me. “You sit and see if there’s anything in Orenda you’d want to change.”
“I’d like to go see the meadow again,” I said when he set yogurt and fruit in front of me a few minutes later.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
We ate, I got dressed, then we pulled on coats and boots and left. Bishop had the plans tucked under his arm. It had snowed after we returned to Ohkwari last night. It wasn’t much. Maybe an inch, but it made everything look pristine.
We walked through the woods to the meadow’s opening. The trees had been cleared here decades ago, and the ground was level for a hundred yards before the slope broke toward the water.
Bishop unrolled the elevation sheet and held it up against the view. “It’ll be spectacular,” he said.
“I need to ask you something, and I want you to answer me honestly.”
He rolled the sheet and faced me. “Go ahead.”
“Are you sure this is what you want? Living here in the mountains—”
“Yes,” he said before I’d even finished my sentence. “With you, kitten. Anywhere with you.” He spun me around to face the lake, then stood beside me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “The only view more beautiful than this one is what I’ll see every morning when I wake up next to you.”
Anna was at the stove when we came in through the kitchen door. Lyra was at the table with Henry, with both laptops open.
I set the rolled plans on the counter and crossed to Anna. “You know, I don’t remember you being in the kitchen so much when we were in Lausanne.”
“It was either me or Mrs. Eggers, and she was the better cook.”
I laughed. “Not a chance.”
We cheek-kissed.
“So, you seem…different this morning. In a good way,” she said.
“Bishop asked me to marry him.”
She turned from the stove. “When?”
“Last night. On the shore.”
“Of course he did.” She called to Bishop in the doorway. “Come here.”
He crossed the kitchen, and Anna took both of his hands in hers.
“You will take good care of our girl.”
“I will.”
“I know. Polina knew it too.”
Anna let go. Lyra came around the table and pulled me into her arms. “Your grandmother would be so happy.”
I held out my left hand. “Bishop and I decided this is my engagement and wedding ring.”
Anna brushed away a tear. “Polina would love that.”
“We’re going away for a few days. After the briefing.”
“Good,” said Anna. “You should.”
“When we come back, we’ll plan a service for Babushka. In the summer, when the ground thaws.”
“At the family plot. Near where you’ll build.”
“That’s where she’d want to be.”
“Close to Mikhail. Close to everything,” Lyra said.
Anna pressed her palm to my cheek and held it there. My babushka used to do the same. “She already is, Katarina. She’s right here with us all the time.”
Henry shook Bishop’s hand and hugged me.
“We should head down to the command center,” he said. “I’ve just received word that Kingston and Gunner have arrived.”
On our way out, I noticed the urn that held my grandmother’s ashes sitting on a table near the windows that looked out over the lake. I brought two fingers to my lips, then pressed the kiss to the urn.
“You can feel her here, can’t you?” Anna asked.
“I can.”
“She was your guardian angel last night too. Both she and Bishop were.”
I kissed her cheek, then the five of us walked to the boathouse together.