Chapter 44
Chapter 44
S he pointed at the chairlift leading up to the Eagle’s Nest, which hung suspended several thousand feet above us. “You owe me. Clear night. Blanket. Wine. Cheese and crackers. Crackling fire. The whole thing. And I’m not talking about some Two-Buck Chuck red blend. I mean I want you to rob Bones’s cellar and get the good stuff. A dusty cabernet. Old and expensive. He’s not gonna miss it.”
I actually laughed. It was the first time I’d done that since he’d been gone. While I felt slightly guilty for doing so, it also felt good.
She continued, “He left it all for you anyway.”
I nodded.
She stared up, then placed her hand on her hip, raised both eyebrows, and tilted her head slightly. “So what’s the holdup?”
“I thought you meant in a few weeks or something.”
“What gave you that impression?”
This entire conversation was going completely over my head. “I think I need a manual for the female specie—”
She snapped her fingers.
“You mean right now?”
“You got something better to do?”
“Well, no, but it seems selfish when Ruth, Miriam, and—”
“Murph.” She kissed my nose. “You can bring that stupid phone. You’re not a robot. I know Bones trained you to act like one, and sometimes it can be a good thing, but remember, you’re a human being. You’re also my husband. And right now I need you to act like it.”
“Well, I can steal the wine, but I don’t know where I’m going to find crackers this time of night. Maybe down in the—”
“Oh my goodness. Sweet eight-pound baby...” She bit her lip. “Then get saltines. Get Wheat Thins. Get Cap’n Crunch. I don’t care. It’s not about the blasted crackers.”
I knew this, but I just liked to see her get excited. “But I thought you said—”
“I’ll get the crackers.”
When she said this, she stood and took the blanket with her, but in doing so she revealed the short gown she was wearing. Which was all she was wearing. And which I, like an idiot, had not noticed. I would describe it but I’d just mess up the moment and you probably get the picture. “You going dressed like that?”
“Maybe. Why? You don’t like it? I bought this for you and I’ve been waiting for a chance to show you. Now, are you saying—”
“Hold it, hold it. Easy there, killer. I like it. I like it a lot. I’m just saying it’s probably hovering around zero up there and you might get a little cold.”
She evidently hadn’t really considered this because she stopped and chewed on her lip, which meant she was calculating. “Well then, I’m going to need a sleeping bag. A warm one. One of those feathery fluffy things, keeps you warm in a blizzard.”
“Check.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll get the bag.”
“You got any more stupid questions?”
I laughed. For the second time. For which I was grateful. “No. Well, maybe. What if I can’t find any cheese?”
She pointed that same crooked finger at me, then fussed with the gown, bringing attention to both it and her. “Murphy Shepherd, I’m through playing. I’m a married woman. You’re a married man. And just so you don’t miss the obvious, we... are married to each other. This”—she motioned to herself—“is what we get to do. I won’t tell if you don’t.” She raised an eyebrow. “Now, you’ve got about thirty seconds to figure out how to live with me”—she paused for effect—“not only as my protector and my husband, but as my lover.” Evidently my eyes had wandered, so she lifted my chin and redirected me. “You picking up what I’m putting down?”
I think I nodded.
I’d first met Summer when she stole a runabout and headed off alone down the Intracoastal at night in search of Angel. She didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t know how to swim. To say she was tough or tenacious was a massive understatement. She had no quit. Summer fought for those she loved, and in this moment, she was fighting—with all she had—for me, and I loved her all the more for it.
On our wedding night, walking from the ceremony to the reception, she directed Angel to lead me to a small room. I pushed open the door and found Summer standing in front of a mirror. Fussing with her hair. A second dress hanging beside her. The intoxicating residue of her perfume hanging in the air. I stood nervously looking over my shoulder, not quite sure what to do with my hands. She read me and pointed toward the room full of people. “They can wait. It’s our reception.” She handed me a slender box about the size of a sheet of paper, covered in gift wrap and tied with a ribbon. “Open it.”
“I thought we agreed not to exchange gifts.”
She nodded. “We did.”
“Can’t believe I fell for that.”
While I fumbled with the ribbon, she lifted her hair off her shoulders and said, “Unzip me.” Then pointed at her wedding dress. “Can’t dance in this thing.”
I did as instructed and then returned to the gift. Inside the box, I found an 8 1 / 2 ” x 11” ebony picture frame. No picture. No glass. Simply a smooth, see-through wooden frame. I studied it like a monkey staring at a Rubik’s cube.
Laughing, she said, “Hold it up.”
When I did, my eyes focused on the image through the frame.
She smiled. “Stop moving it around.”
Centered in the frame stood Summer. Her dancer’s body laid bare. Onstage yet shared with a singular audience—me. The only thing she wore was the cross I’d bought her. Both my jaw and my arms dropped, which brought another giggle out of her. She shook her head, saying, “Nope,” then reached forward and lifted my arms. “Keep ’em up.”
I tried.
She walked closer. Then she just stood. Unashamed. Unafraid. Unfiltered.
She whispered, “You’re blushing.”
I nodded and swallowed. “Yes, I am.”
She placed her thumbs on both of my temples. “Before we go any further... in that room... with those people... in our life... I want to replace the pictures”—she tapped both sides of my head and tilted hers just slightly—“rolling around in here. I want to give myself to you, before I give myself to you.”
Her skin was warm and soft. Another swallow. I managed, “Mission accomplished.”
She lifted the ebony frame, focusing my eyes through it once again, and then stepped back and twirled. Once. Then twice. She half turned. “You good?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
Sweat misted on her temple and across the top of her breast. I handed her my folded handkerchief, which she used to dab the sides of her face and top lip. She eyed the unwrinkled and spotless white cloth, reading the date and our names. “You do this all by yourself?”
I shook my head. “Clay.”
She laughed. “Love that man.” Another twirl as she clutched my handkerchief. “You starting to get the picture?”
Music and laughter from the reception spilled through the walls. “You don’t actually expect me to eat dinner with these people now, do you?”
“And dance.”
She turned, pressed her body to mine, and kissed me, her hands hanging behind my head. “I can’t compete with your past. No woman can. It’s been there too long, and to make matters worse, you immortalized it in books that are now in every civilized country in the world. In maybe the most beautiful way imaginable—of which I’m your biggest fan—you idealized a painful reality. And because of your magnificent words, and a heart that is bigger than this body, we all love Marie, and I love you all the more for it. But...” She laid her hand flat across my heart. “We cannot start the rest of our lives staring through the rearview mirror. So rightly or wrongly, I brought you here to push pause for just a moment and give you a glimpse of me with”—a laugh—“all my cellulite and wrinkles, and my dancer’s body, which lacks some things men find attractive, before we walk in there.” She held my face in her hands. “I brought you here to give you an unedited image into our future that, I hope, drowns out the written, rewritten, and edited echo of the past.”
“There’s that word again.”
She closed her eyes. “Which one?”
“Hope.”
She nodded. Waiting.
I stood in wonder. “I don’t see any cellulite.”
She pointed above us. “It’s the lighting.”
Now, she pressed her forehead to mine. Exposing the risk she was taking in this moment. When Summer had stolen the boat and set off down the Intracoastal, full throttle, in search of her runaway daughter, she’d done so while unable to swim. Driven by love, she risked the consequences. Even death. Here and now, she was risking her heart to rescue another.
Me.
Summer had rescued me. Both in that moment and in this.
I pointed. “Chairlift. Twenty minutes.”
She shook her head matter-of-factly. “Eight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled, revealing that she’d gotten what she wanted. “Thank you.”
While she had my undivided attention, one thing caught my eye. It was her most beautiful feature. Her heart.
It was one of the best moments ever.
No sooner had the words exited my mouth than my phone rang. Caller ID read “MIT.” She turned, suspicious. Then a wrinkle appeared between her eyes, which she rolled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What could he possibly want this time of...” About then, she answered her own question, the color drained out of her face, and reality set in.
I accepted the call, but before I had a chance to say anything, Eddie erupted, “We got something.”