Chapter 4 The Anniversary
The Anniversary
Maren
Five years married. Seven since the charity gala where a man in orange boots bid fifteen thousand dollars for a dance with me, then spent the whole evening trying to convince me the boots were ironic. They weren't. He just had terrible taste in footwear and excellent taste in women.
I'm thinking about those boots while I get dressed for dinner, the restaurant in Jackson Hole where he proposed, white tablecloths and a view of the Tetons and a wine list thicker than most novels.
We drove up this morning, checked into the lodge where we spent our honeymoon, and I've spent the afternoon in the spa while Jackson handled some calls he swore would only take an hour.
They took three hours. But he's here now, dressed in the charcoal suit I love, watching me fasten my grandmother's opal around my throat.
He turns away from the mirror to face me, suddenly pleased with himself. "I have something for you."
He pulls a velvet box from his jacket pocket. Inside, nestled against black silk, are the most beautiful earrings I've ever seen. Fire opals, the same blue-green flame as my grandmother's necklace, set in delicate gold drops that catch the light like captured sunset.
My throat tightens. "The shop window. Two months ago."
He looks pleased that I remember the window, too. "You stopped at the window. I went back after you left."
For once, I don't mean it as an accusation. I'm honestly touched. "You were paying attention."
"I'm always paying attention." He takes the earrings from the box and fastens them himself, his fingers warm against my neck. When I turn to look in the mirror, the opals glow against my skin, perfectly matched to the necklace I've worn almost every day since my grandmother died.
He turns me gently toward the mirror so I can see the earrings. "Happy anniversary, Mrs. Wilder." This is the man I married. He remembered a thing I barely let myself want.
I kiss him, slow and deep, tasting wine from the glass he had while I was getting ready. "Thank you. They're perfect."
He leaves his fingers against mine after the kiss. I let them stay. "You're perfect. I'm just trying to keep up."
The restaurant hasn't changed since the night he proposed.
Same white tablecloths, same view of the Tetons turning pink in the evening light, same elderly waiter who remembers the night Jackson proposed.
We order the tasting menu. We hold hands across the table.
We talk about the ranch and the business and the plans we've been making for the south pasture expansion.
For two hours, I have my husband back. The real Jackson, present and focused, asking questions about the Bennett contract and actually listening to the answers.
He tells me about a breeding program he's been researching, gets animated the way he does when he's excited about something, and I fall in love with him all over again.
This is what I married.
His phone buzzes.
I see the screen light up where it sits beside his plate. I see the name on the notification. SHAY.
I set down my wine glass. "Don't."
"Let me just see what..." He looks at me, then at the phone, then back at me. I watch him weigh the options. His wife across the table in opal earrings he drove to Jackson Hole to buy. His childhood friend whose name keeps appearing on his screen at the worst possible moments.
I don't want to beg in a restaurant. I hate that I can hear myself doing it. "Jackson. Please. One night."
He answers anyway. "Hey, what's up?"
I pull my hand away from the wine glass. I don't want to throw it across the restaurant, but I'm thinking about it.
His face shifts from anniversary-soft to concerned-friend. "Okay, okay, slow down. Where are you?"
He mouths sorry at me and pushes back from the table. "Are you safe right now? Is the guest house locked?"
I watch him walk toward the lobby, phone pressed to his ear, shoulders tight with worry. The waiter appears with our next course and hesitates when he sees the empty chair.
I smooth the napkin in my lap. "He'll be right back."
He won't be right back.
He comes back while the waiter is clearing our plates. "Foreman says they didn't find anyone. No sign of a vehicle, no one matching the description she gave. She's shaken up but safe. Two guys staying with her."
My first concern is the people at home. I turn toward him fully. "What happened?"
He lowers his voice so the waiter won't hear the explanation. "She says her ex showed up at the guest house. Scared her."
I let out the breath I've been holding. "I'm glad someone's with her. Sit down."
His phone buzzes again. He looks at the screen, then at me.
I leave my hand on the table where he can reach it. "Jackson. Please."
"She's still really upset. Let me just talk her down and I'll be right back.
" He's gone before I can answer. The waiter brings the next course and offers to keep Jackson's warm.
I tell him yes, then look down at my own plate.
Why did he bother buying me earrings if he planned to leave me here wearing them alone?
Other couples around us laugh and toast. I drink my wine and watch the Tetons fade into dark silhouettes. When Jackson finally returns for good, I put down my fork. "So she's safe. The staff handled it. There's nothing you can do from here that isn't already being done."
He remains perched at the edge of his chair, not quite back with me. "She was crying, Maren. I couldn't just hang up."
The earrings brush my neck as I turn toward him. He chose them for tonight. "It's our anniversary."
His apology comes with the question he keeps asking me, as if I am the one who must solve this. "I know. I know, and I'm sorry, but she was terrified. What was I supposed to do?"
"You were supposed to tell her the staff would handle it and come back to the table.
" I hear my voice, sharp and hard, and I don't care anymore.
"You were supposed to come back once someone was with her.
We are sitting in the restaurant where you proposed to me, Jackson. Does that matter to you tonight?"
He leans toward me, intent on making me understand her fear. "She says he threatened her. She was still scared."
"And she called you instead of the security staff because...?" He doesn't have an answer for that. I watch him search for one, watch him come up empty.
He answers before I can ask anything else. "That's not fair. She was scared. She wasn't thinking about who to call, she just called the person she trusts."
I can accept that she was frightened. I cannot accept being treated as cruel for wanting him to come back. "She trusts you more than the people who actually handle security on our property. The people who are literally paid to deal with situations like this. That doesn't strike you as strange?"
He says it with the certainty he used to have when he spoke up for me. "She knows me. She doesn't know them."
"She's been here a month. She could know them if she wanted to." The waiter approaches, sees our faces, and retreats. Smart man.
"I don't want to fight." Jackson reaches for my hand. "Not tonight. Not on our anniversary."
I let him take my hand. I want to hold on, which makes me angrier. Why do I still want him to pull his chair closer after all this? "Once she was safe, why couldn't you come back?"
He looks down at his plate. "I thought you'd understand."
I watch a waiter carry away someone else's empty plates. I'd wanted to remember what ours tasted like. "And you couldn't let someone else handle it for one night. One night out of the whole year that's supposed to be ours."
"You're being jealous over nothing." Nothing? He thinks wanting my husband beside me amounts to nothing?
"Jealous." I pull my hand back. "You think this is jealousy?"
He leaves his hand where mine was, and makes no move to follow when I pull away. "What else would you call it?"
I don't keep my voice as quiet this time. If someone hears, let them. "I'm tired of coming second in my own marriage. I asked you to sit with me after you knew she was safe, and you still left. Why does she get to keep you on the phone while I eat alone?"
"That's not..." He stops, runs a hand through his hair. "You're twisting this."
I hold his gaze. I'm not going to explain away what I just watched him do. "Am I?"
He sits back as if he has finally found the explanation that should satisfy me. "Shay is my friend. She's going through a hard time. I'm trying to help her get back on her feet. That's all this is."
I give him the practical answer again, though practicality isn't what kept him in the lobby.
"That's not all this is. If Jake's car broke down, you'd send a tow truck.
You already have people checking the guest house.
But Shay calls and you drop everything, every time, no matter what else is happening. "
"Because she's rebuilding from nothing and she doesn't have anyone else." There it is again, the reason he gives her all the patience he's running out of with me.
I am trying to understand why the whole burden has to belong to my husband. "She has an entire ranch full of people who could help her. She chooses to call you."
He's quiet for a long moment. The restaurant murmurs around us, other people's conversations, other people's anniversaries going the way they're supposed to. "I don't know what you want me to say."
I make the request as plainly as I can. No guessing what I mean this time. "I want you to stop calling me jealous when I ask you to stay with me. Let someone else help her sometimes. Tonight you knew she was safe and you left again."
His refusal is quiet. It doesn't hurt any less for that. "I can't promise I'll ignore her calls."
I wait for him to meet my eyes before I ask. "Can't or won't?"
He looks straight at me when he answers, and I finally stop searching for another way to ask. "Won't. Because if she's genuinely in trouble, I'm not going to ignore her just to prove a point to you."
I stare at him across the table, at this man I've loved for seven years, married for five.
The man who noticed earrings in a shop window and remembered them for two months.
The man who is looking at me right now like I'm being unreasonable for wanting his attention on our anniversary. "I'd like to go back to the lodge."
His hand moves toward mine again, but I put my napkin on the table. "Maren..."
I keep my eyes on the folded linen. If I look at his face, I might start hoping he can rescue the evening. "I'm tired. I've lost my appetite. I want to go back."
He signals for the check without another word.
The drive to the lodge is silent. The suite is beautiful, the same one where we spent our honeymoon, but I can't see it the way I saw it this afternoon. Everything looks different now.
I go to the bathroom to take off my makeup. In the mirror, the opal earrings glow against my skin, beautiful and perfect and given with love.
I take them off. Put them back in the velvet box. Close the lid.
When I come out, Jackson is sitting on the edge of the bed, still in his suit, looking like a man who knows he's made a mistake but doesn't understand what it was.
He holds out his hand. "I love you. I need you to know that."
I believe him. That's what makes this so hard to understand. "I know."
He lowers his offered hand to the mattress. I can't take it tonight. "And I'm sorry tonight didn't go the way we planned."
"Me too." I climb into bed beside him, but I turn away when he reaches for me. After a moment, he pulls his hand back.
"Happy anniversary, Maren." I don't answer. I reach past him, put the velvet box in the nightstand drawer, and push it shut.