Читать книгу Her Favorite Husband - Caron Todd - Страница 13

IAN WAS MORE THAN LATE for his appointment. He missed it entirely. He rebooked the interview, for the following day, and went to spend the remainder of the morning at a restaurant that promised authentic northern fare, everything from caribou steak to musk ox burgers to freshly caught Great Slave Lake fish. He ordered bannock and coffee, opened his laptop and tried to work.

Tried but failed.

Sarah had been in his bed. Sarah Bretton Kingsley Bennett Carr. How long would her name be by the time she was fifty? There weren’t many decisions he regretted—even the bad ones usually had value—but that “I’ll call you a taxi” moment was one. Her face when he’d told her to go…he wouldn’t forget that expression in a hurry. And then the way she’d rearranged herself, that sinuous movement that turned her breasts and legs into the only things in the room…

“I’m not sure it’s that easy,” she’d said, mixing sultry with cool. She was right. The whole uncomfortable scenario of him being wrong about that and her being right about it was complicated by the memory of her leg hooked over his hip. Silky, but insistent.

Taking into account what he knew about Sarah and about the city’s hotels, he tried to guess where she’d be staying, if she hadn’t already zipped back to Vancouver.

As he guessed, she was registered at the newest, most luxurious place in town. When the switchboard put him through to her room, the answering machine picked up.

“Sarah? It’s me.” Although there weren’t many customers in the restaurant, he lowered his voice as he said, “Don’t know about you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. My behavior—”

What could he say about his behavior?

“It was inexcusable.” Strong word. He felt better, saying it. “Pretty much from hello. You probably know what happened. Same old problem, right? One of them, anyway.”

He understood the banana peel remark had been an exaggeration, but it was true enough. Sarah jumped into things without looking, and she thought it was a good quality.

“That’s no excuse,” he added, wishing he hadn’t brought up the past. Blaming the other person had a way of watering down an apology. “I was a jerk no matter what the provocation. Anyway, I’m sorry for being thoughtless last night. And I hope you’re okay this morning.”

He imagined her voice, teasing, amused, saying of course she was all right. He used to wonder if it was even possible to hurt her. It was easy to infuriate her, but most of the time she kept things light. Or sexy. Like last night, walking toward him naked, as if he’d be mesmerized and do whatever she wanted.

As if? She’d nearly got her wish.

“I have to go, Sarah. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

As soon as he ended the call he realized he shouldn’t have left it open-ended. He should have said goodbye. None of that till we meet again stuff. A definite we’re done goodbye.

That’s what it was in his mind. Always had been.

He woke up his sleeping laptop. In one pane, he began playing a downloaded video that showed how diamonds formed. In another, he typed Column, Week Two.

Diamonds are forged by intense heat and pressure deep in the earth’s mantle….

Boring. Delete.

Diamonds are almost as old as the world itself. Some say they come from the stars….

Boring and vague. Delete.

He tried again.

The only diamond that ever caught my fancy was small and flawed, but that imperfect fraction-of-a-carat held a whole world, a whole future.

He stared at that for a while, then deleted it, too.

SARAH’S SPIRITS BEGAN TO rise as soon as she felt the sun on her face. Last night couldn’t be undone. The problem of the missing book couldn’t be solved, not today, not until she and Liz sat down together. All she wanted from this moment in time was to take it in, to see and hear and smell it.

For a small city, Yellowknife bustled. Ian had talked about that in his column, about people coming from all over the world to work in the diamond industry. Walking along the sidewalk, she heard so many languages spoken it was like an outdoor United Nations. The speakers of those languages were mostly men. Young, strong men of the wood-chopping, diamond-digging variety.

She hadn’t planned to shop, but all along her route to the Old Town the stores were filled with local arts and crafts. She found treasures every few steps—soap-stone carvings, photographs of the summer’s never-setting sun and the winter’s northern lights, traditional beaded leatherwork and incredible quilts with colorful, hand-sewn northern scenes. Soon she had souvenirs for everyone in her family and at Fraser Press, and had moved on to birthday and Christmas presents.

Just when she thought she couldn’t carry another thing, she came to a bookstore. Bookstores, she’d always thought, were as good as a rest, so she opened the door with her two free fingers and stepped inside.

“Oh, my goodness,” a woman said, hurrying from behind a counter. “Let me help you with those packages.” For a moment they were almost bound together, trying to untangle bags without dropping any. “Have you bought the entire town?”

“Not yet, but there’s still tomorrow.” Sarah pulled her collar away from her throat, letting a breath of air reach her skin. Her sweater, hand-knitted Peruvian alpaca wool, had seemed perfect when she was packing. “I didn’t think to check the weather before leaving home. It’s summer.”

“Yes, it is. For a while. A short, but delightful while. You’re not the first to think we have winter year-round.” The clerk didn’t seem to mind Sarah’s ignorance. She had a grandmotherly manner. Sarah could imagine her curling up with a child, getting comfortable to read a story. “Feel free to browse and if you see something you’d like to buy, I’ll be happy to send it to wherever you’re staying.”

Sarah thanked her, and turned to see the display on the closest table. It was a collection of children’s books. J. K. Rowling, C. S. Lewis, Enid Blyton…and Elizabeth Robb.

The familiar covers jumped out at her. There was an early story about a boy and a space pirate, a more recent book about warring fairies—Liz had written that one while falling in love with Jack—and a third, Sarah’s favorite, a nature book, all lush paintings and no text, done in memory of Liz’s first husband.

She began to leaf through it. Andy was on every page, a boy discovering the variety of life in a forest.

The clerk must have noticed her interest. “That one is by a Manitoba author. Very popular. What’s the age of the child in question?”

“Oh, about thirty,” Sarah said, with a laugh. “But I already have these three. I’m enjoying remembering the first time I read them.”

“They’re lovely books, aren’t they? So colorful, and full of warmth, I always think. Robb has another book coming out in the spring. We’ve started a sign-up sheet.”

“You need a sign-up sheet?”

“It saves disappointment. I wouldn’t say the response compares to Harry Potter, but we do get a stream of parents and children coming in the month of an Elizabeth Robb release.”

That was good news and bad news. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.” A desperate, anxious eye.

Sarah chose some books—biographies of northern explorers and prospectors—and carried them to the checkout counter. As if the reminder of Liz’s problem wasn’t enough, taped to the wall behind the cash register she saw a clipping of Ian’s column. His black-and-white photo stared back at her.

I didn’t, she wanted to tell it. I didn’t drop anything.

ALL RIGHT, SO SHE had been a little careless where Liz was concerned. That don’t-bug-me tone had merited closer attention. Oliver could lecture her about it if he wanted, but not Ian.

With heavy bags digging into her fingers and banging against her legs, she finally came to the lake. On a map or from the air its shape made her think of a goose in flight. From the ground, it was like an ocean. The water went on and on, all the way to the horizon, clear and blue and sparkling.

Brightly painted houseboats—blue, red, yellow—were tethered on the north side. Farther out, sailboats and windsurfers glided across the waves. A few hardy people were swimming. In spite of the sun, the nearly twenty-four-hour sun, she couldn’t believe it was warm enough for that.

It reminded her of the Whiteshell, where her family had a cottage. Huge sheets of weathered granite sloped up from the lake. Along the shore, rocks had long ago broken off and tumbled into the water. A stab of homesickness struck her.

“Kinda pretty, a’nit?”

Sarah turned with a start to see an old man nearly at her elbow. She stepped back, more comfortable having a few feet between them, even though he seemed too frail to do any harm. He wasn’t a hundred percent clean. As soon as she noticed that she felt guilty.

“I didn’t hear you,” she told him.

He raised his voice. “Pretty, a’nit?”

She smiled, not sure if he was joking. “I meant I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “You was off in your own world. From away, are ya?”

“Vancouver. And you’re from here?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “From the Flats.”

He must mean Willow Flats, part of the Old Town. Sarah wondered if he was one of the prospectors who’d built there during the Depression. That would make him, what, ninety-five? Couldn’t be. Maybe he’d come during the second wave of gold mining. That would put him in his seventies or eighties. From the look of him he hadn’t had much luck, whatever brought him here.

“I’m taking my walk,” he told her. “Up to the caf for a beer.”

“In the morning?” She couldn’t help asking.

“Be noon once I’m there.”

The café, looking out over the water from the other side of the narrow peninsula, was a long walk for a slow-moving old man. Sarah wondered if she should offer him a few dollars. She didn’t want to offend him, but here she stood with bags and bags of souvenirs, and there he wobbled in his dusty clothes.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me buy you that beer?” She felt in her pocket and brought out a few five dollar bills, enough for a meal, as well. “To thank you for stopping to make me feel welcome?”

“Well, ya know, I did that for free.” He nodded in farewell and started away, leaving her with her hand and the bills outstretched.

Embarrassed, she put the money back in her pocket. She didn’t seem to be doing much right lately.

Not far along the shoreline was a place where the stones were terraced like stairs. They led to a flat rock shelf big enough for a few people to sunbathe. She tucked her purchases into a dry, shaded nook, put her shoes on top, rolled up her slacks and waded into the lake.

Cold, clear water lapped over her toes, then over her ankles. It chilled her through, an odd sensation when she was so hot, like chills and fever. Minnows and water bugs darted to her feet, then away. She stopped to watch a small plane take off, slapping against the water before it lifted to the air and headed north, its loud engine fading to a drone.

She reached the stone steps and she climbed onto the shelf. There was one just like it at her family’s cottage. She and her brothers had fished from it, dived from it, had campfires on it. She and Ian had made love on it, late at night when there was a new moon, so nothing but stars lit their bodies.

The good memories were the ones that gave her the most trouble. Better memories than she had with anyone else.

Right from day one.

First class, first day of university, Old English lit, two rows ahead and three seats over. The cutest guy on the face of the earth.

Of course, at that point she hadn’t seen many guys yet.

Beowulf, as fascinating as he was, had receded. Her world, in that moment, was composed only of herself and this unknown boy. She was sorry for everyone else, everyone who wasn’t her, about to fall in love with him.

They had nearly all their classes together. That first week, she didn’t learn a thing. Didn’t take a single note. Didn’t turn a page. She watched Ian.

He was different from anyone she’d met before. Quiet, still, but not from shyness. She could tell it was from listening and thinking so intently.

One day they went for coffee and he talked about Shakespeare the way other guys talked about video games—like something vivid and fun, full of muscled, sweaty men with swords, not English actors in tights.

She couldn’t concentrate on what he said, though. All she could think was that she wanted to kiss him. She watched his face and his eyes, watched them change as his thoughts changed, noticed the way his mouth tightened when he stopped to think, and the way his lips parted and softened when he spoke. She thought of the way her lips would feel on his.

One day she did it. Kissed him. Right there in the coffee shop. What she hadn’t imagined was the heat, the current, sparked by that touch. It propelled them, no questions asked, into his dorm room and onto his bed.

They spent days in his room. Shakespeare was still in the mix. With Ian, Shakespeare was always part of it. Of course, Sarah was a fan, too. After seeing an old video of the Olivia Hussey Romeo and Juliet, how could she not be? But for Ian the Complete Works was like a self-help book. Shakespeare, Ian had claimed, understood everything, all human yearnings, all the mistakes and all the dreams.

Sarah didn’t want to think what the Bard would say about her now, a comic character on a fool’s errand to Yellowknife. Never mind rose-colored glasses; the minute she’d read that article on Saturday morning, she’d put on a blindfold.

THE WALK BACK TO THE hotel was uphill all the way. By the time Sarah reached the New Town, she felt as old and tired as the man by the lake.

She stopped for a breather, and saw three restaurants within close range. A pizzeria straight ahead, a Chinese establishment at one end of the street and a place that claimed to serve authentic northern fare down the other.

She went closer to read the menu posted on an outside wall. There through the window was Ian, like a framed picture, lost in thought, a cup of coffee beside his laptop.

Writer at Work. No, that didn’t fit. He didn’t look productive at all. Stalked by Guilt?

Probably not. By now he’d managed to squeeze the mistake he’d enjoyed so much into some dark, unused corner of his brain, then shut the door and locked it.

The imbalance between them unsettled her. He so clearly didn’t want to see her, but she wasn’t done needing to see him.

It was noon and she was hungry. She decided to go in.