“I’ll bet. Well, with the elections over last week, things should settle down some for you.”
“Yes.” She knew what would come next.
“I suppose you know Joan Bradon won the senate election.”
“Yes, I know. That was great news. It must have made . . . everybody very happy.” Lord, she couldn’t even say his name.
“I guess. Although Michael acted pretty weird about it.”
She looked up from the silverware she’d been aligning and realigning on the white tablecloth. “What do you mean? Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? I don’t know. Would you call it wrong when a guy works like crazy for something for more than a year, something he really believes in, and then when it happens he acts like he’s not totally aware of it? Would you call it wrong when someone looks like being miserable would be one hell of an improvement in his life?”
“Don’t. Please, Grady.” She blinked hard at the tears she thought had evaporated months ago, along with the hurt pride. She knew Michael must regret that she’d been hurt—of course he would. But how could she feel sorry for his pain when all she had left to feel for herself were weariness and sadness?
Grady covered her hand, stilling her infinitesimal straightening of her dessert spoon. “I didn’t want to upset you, but it’s hard seeing my friends hurting like this. Especially you two. You were always so . . . so close, I guess. You always seemed to understand each other so well. Don’t you think if you just talked it out . . . ?”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk out.”
She’d already forced the issue. If he’d once thought she still was infatuated with Grady. her actions surely had disproved that. How could Michael doubt that he was the one she wanted? Good heavens, she’d practically thrown herself at the man—no, she had thrown herself at the man. So, he’d been only human. He’d probably half convinced himself it was what he wanted, too, just because she wanted it. But in the morning, he’d seen it for a mistake—he didn’t feel that way toward her--and he’d been too honest not to tell her.
Yes, he’d been only human and she’d been a fool. This time, their famed ability to communicate had been way off the mark. She’d been so sure she and Michael must be feeling the same thing that she hadn’t even stopped to listen to the doubts he’d tried to express.
But now she saw exactly how he’d tried to warn her. She just hadn’t listened.
“Nothing to talk about,” she repeated.
Grady looked unconvinced.
“It was a mistake, that’s all. . . a mistake.” Her mistake. “We didn’t know each other as well as we thought we did. It’s all right.”
He patted her hand a little awkwardly and released it, staring into space a long moment before turning back to her with narrowed eyes. “Joan Bradon could be in a position to help you with your homeless project. She’s shown a lot of interest in things like that. And she’s not the type to be afraid of plunging in.”
“How did you know about the project?”
He shrugged. “I knew. And Paul told me some of the details, some of the problems you’ve had with it. Are you going to submit the proposal to Michael?”
“No!” She said it with enough vehemence that heads turned at neighboring tables, but Grady didn’t seem to notice.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think it would be, um, appropriate, taking advantage of our, uh, our connection.”
“Baloney. I may not be a politician, but it can’t be all that different from business. Of course it’s appropriate to go to somebody you know. And you know darn well Michael wouldn’t ever recommend something to Joan Bradon that he didn’t think was right.”
She tried to meet his suddenly searching look, but when his eyes narrowed again, she found the sight of her salad fork too fascinating to ignore.
As much as she wanted this project to survive, as much as Joan Bradon’s backing might help cut through the red tape and encourage the agencies to pool their money for it, she didn’t want to go through Michael. She could tell herself it was because he wouldn’t give the proposal a fair chance, judging by the way he’d reacted in August. She could even say she felt insulted at his treating her like an untried seventeen-year-old. But she knew those weren’t the real reasons.
She didn’t think she could bear it. Talking to him, seeing him. And knowing that the night of love and passion that had finally and completely opened her eyes to this man, had convinced him that what he felt for her wasn’t deep enough, wasn’t strong enough. He’d desired her, yes, but the feelings that had been a revelation for her had merely been an aberration to him.
Talking to him couldn’t make her ache any more than she already did, but it wouldn’t help her forget, either.
Perhaps if that had been the only way to get help for the project, she would have. But there were other avenues to bring it to the senator-elect’s attention, avenues she was already pursuing. Over these past months, she’d deliberately thrown every bit of energy and emotion she had into work, vainly hoping that there would be less to devote to missing Michael. She’d honed the proposal, making it as practical and well documented as she could, with support and explanations and contingencies for every aspect of it. At each step, she’d heard Michael’s voice advising and assisting. But that wasn’t unusual, because she heard his voice all the time. She heard all the words and inflections stored up from a week in August and more than a decade of friendship.
“That stuff about appropriateness is an excuse, Tris. So what is it really? Do you think Michael would dismiss your proposal because the two of you have had this misunderstanding?”
“Of course not.” The snap in her voice punished his temerity for suggesting Michael could be so unfair.
“Then you shouldn’t handicap this proposal because of a ‘mistake’ you and Michael made.’’
Not Michael. Just me, alone, making the mistake . And paying dearly for it.
Relief swept into her as she saw Leslie slowly making her way back to the table. That would put an end to this cross-examination.
“I’ll think about it, Grady.” A promise easily made. As much as she’d tried over the past months, she knew that not thinking about Michael Dickinson would have been the promise she couldn’t have kept.
* * * *
“They’re sending us home, Tris. Get your coat. C’mon, we’ll brave the Metro together.”
“What? Why?”
“Haven’t you looked out the window? I know you’ve spent the past few months working like someone possessed, but I’d think you’d lift your nose from the grindstone once in a while, just long enough to note a little thing like a blizzard.”
Tris spread the thin-slatted blinds that covered her office window to look out on the January sky. Shades of off-white colored the whole world, from the cloud-packed sky to the whitening ground below, and all the snow-filled air in between.
“That’s no blizzard,” she said with a Midwesterner’s weather snobbery. “A blizzard is a precise term—you have to have very high winds and a lot more snow than this.”
“Maybe not in the Great White Waste you used to live in, but in D.C., that is a blizzard.”
Leslie’s gesture pointed down more than out, and Tris craned her neck to view the street below. Cars skidded and spun in disastrous abandon. She became aware of the bleating of horns. Through the maze, she watched the blue roof of one sedan steadily work its way through the panicked traffic. Northerner, she thought. Probably a newcomer, maybe part of the administration taking office in ten days. Because there was something about Washington driving—a couple D.C. winters, and even the most hardened snow driver degenerated.
Leslie returned, draping Tris’s coat over the corner of her desk and plopping her boots at her feet.
“Besides, the office is closing, so you’ve got to leave. The place won’t fall apart because you leave a couple hours early, you know. You might as well come with me. You can brag about how you had to walk eleven
miles to school in weather like this every day of the winter when you were growing up, and I, Virginia belle that I am, promise to be suitably impressed.”
Tris considered the scene outside a moment longer. Going home meant too much time, too much quiet. Too much time to think and wonder and wish, and too much quiet to drown out her heart. But she knew this town and its reaction to snow. If she stayed, she could very well be stranded for a couple of days. She capitulated with a halfhearted laugh.
“My God, the woman laughs. I don’t think I’ve heard that since the cherry trees were blooming. No, a little later than that. August, I think. So it must have been the crape myrtle blooming.”
Tris slanted a warning look at her friend, but didn’t say anything as she pulled on her boots.
“Let’s go, Tris, or we’ll never get a spot on the Metro.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. You can’t think we’re going to get a seat—”
“A seat? Huh! I’m not talking about a place to sit, I’m talking about a place to stand!”
The stinging wind-driven snowflakes and the pure adrenaline of a simple battle against the elements brought a tingling to Tris’s cheeks. Fighting the elements provided a welcome change from tilting against memories.
They were laughing together as the momentum of the crowd carried them into the escalator entrance to the Metro, down a short flight of stairs to the platform heading north and into a waiting car.
“Well, at least we’ve got a place to stand,” she said to Leslie as the flood of people behind pressed them into the nearly full standing area Already the body heat had driven up the temperature. She pushed the snow-dampened wool scarf back off her hair and froze.
“Yeah, a place to stand, all right,” Leslie said. “I don’t think we could not stand. We’re packed in here so tight I think you could faint and still be standing up. I swear— What is it, Tris?”
Tris heard Leslie’s voice, but the words didn’t make sense to her. Nothing made sense with Michael standing three feet away. Over the shoulders of the four commuters who separated them, he stared at her.
“Hello, Tris.”
His voice was so low she shouldn’t have heard it for all the complaints and comments of the people around them.
But she did.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She should have been ready for this. She should have been prepared. Of course she knew his candidate had won the election back in November. Even if she’d never read every newspaper article about Joan Bradon’s election or stayed up half the night watching the returns, Grady had told her. And somewhere in her mind she must have realized that meant Michael would be coming to Washington. But she hadn’t allowed herself to consider it. She hadn’t prepared herself to come face-to-face with him.
“Oh.” She heard Leslie’s soft sound of comprehension behind her. “Oh-ho!”
The train started with a jolt, and she wasn’t prepared for that, either. She lurched forward, careening into the man nearest her. Michael’s hand shot out to her shoulder, and between that and the close quarters, she quickly regained her balance. At least her physical balance. Her emotional balance still reeled from the double shock of seeing Michael, and the contact of his hand on her shoulder. The layers of leather, wool and silk between them didn’t seem to matter to her tingling nerves.
Somehow Michael had gotten closer. She felt his presence like a source of heat in a cold room. At her side, Leslie wormed and wiggled two other people out of their way, and the three of them stood in a compact circle, isolated in a sea of backs.
“Hi, I’m Leslie Craig. I work with Tris.”
Leslie pivoted the elbow tucked in against her side by a woman to her right, and offered her hand.
“Oh. Yes . . .” Shock thawed out of Tris. She could react again. And she could hurt. “Leslie Craig, this is Michael Dickinson. Michael, Leslie Craig.”
“How do you do, Michael,” Leslie said, squeezing his hand because there was no room to shake it, and openly appraising him. “Who are you?”
“Leslie—”
“I mean how do you know Tris?” Leslie clarified unrepentantly.
“We knew each other at college,” Michael said, with a hint of a smile behind his good manners.
“Oh, did you?” Leslie seemed to feel his answer explained a lot. “You’re a friend of Cousin Paul and Gorgeous Grady, are you?”
“Leslie—”
Tris ignored the look Michael shot at her, preferring to focus the full force of her glare on Leslie. But she nevertheless felt the impact of those hazel eyes on her face.
He turned back to Leslie, frowning. “Yes. I’m a friend of Paul’s. And Grady’s.”
Leslie nodded, the way a teacher does at a student who has just answered a difficult question perfectly.
“And you were at Paul and Bette’s wedding in Illinois in August.”
“Yes.” His frown started to slip.
“In the wedding?”
“Yes.” Amusement edged the frown further aside.
“Best man?”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “Is this part of the usual Washington greeting? Are you with the FBI, Ms. Craig? Demonstrating for me how futile it would be to try to hide any skeletons in my closet?”
“Do you have any skeletons in your closet?”
Again Tris felt his eyes on her. “None that would interest the FBI.”
Leslie didn’t seem to notice the strain in that answer.
“Good, then you should call me Leslie. And let me say you’re very welcome to Washington. Very welcome,” she repeated with emphasis and a sidelong look at Tris, still the silent point of their triangle.
“Thank you, Leslie. It’s nice to feel welcomed. I just got into town for good at the beginning of the week, and I haven’t had a chance to do anything but work so far.”
Tris wondered if that was partly for her benefit; telling her he hadn’t had an opportunity to call her since he got into town. But what would they have said to each other even if he had called?
“Well, I can guarantee you won’t be doing any work the next couple of days. D.C. does not function in snow. Where do you live?”
He mentioned an address two Metro stops past the one Leslie and Tris used.
Leslie tilted her head at him consideringly. “I hope you’ve got plenty of food supplies stashed away. The stores will be picked clean by now.”
“Actually, no. I just moved into my apartment. My furniture won’t arrive for a couple more weeks and I haven’t had a chance to do much shopping yet.”
“Then you better plan on staying with Tris.”
“Leslie!”
Tris wished she had the power to make Leslie disappear. Or at least shut up. She was excruciatingly aware that her contribution to the conversation had consisted solely of speaking her friend’s name in various tones of reproach. But she didn’t know what else to say to Leslie. And every time she tried to think of something to say to Michael, her eyes burned with the horrible threat of tears.
“I mean it. You know what this town is like, Tris. The man could starve.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll just eat out, the way I have been— No?” He broke off as Leslie shook her head vehemently.
“No. You don’t understand what happens to this place when it snows. The restaurants close. The stores close. The government closes. Everything closes when it’s this bad.”
“But it’s not that bad,” he protested. “I thought they were kidding when they said the offices were closing.”
“That’s what you and Tris think, but the rest of us think different. You two sound just alike. In fact—”
The crackle of the Metro’s PA system interrupted her. Words popped in and out of hearing range, tantalizing the listener into believing someone really was saying something worth listening to.
“What’d he say?”
“Which station?”
“Did he say buses?”
“Closed for sure?”
&n
bsp; “Shuttles.”
“Oh, shuttles. I thought he said something else.”
“Amounts to about the same thing.”
The questions and comments eddied around them, the passengers piecing together the bits of the message heard, and extrapolating from experience.
“See!” Leslie was triumphant. “Our stop’s the last one open. Michael can’t get home.”
“Maybe you’d better . . .” Tris looked up at Michael, and couldn’t go on. Looking into his eyes reminded her too much of what she’d lost. She’d lost that warm look of her friend Michael that she’d relied on for so many years. She’d lost that hot look of her lover Michael that she’d reveled in for one brief night.
“It’s all right, Tris. I’ll make it to my place fine. It’s really not that bad a storm. I can’t believe everything would close up for this.”
The Metro car came to a stop. As soon as the doors opened, people in front popped out like a champagne cork, with the rest of the passengers frothing along behind them. Everyone was carried away in the frantic eddy of those most anxious to get ahead.
“Where are the shuttles?”
“Which shuttle do you take to Bethesda?”
“Hurry up, or they’ll all be filled.”
Tris let the current take her up the stairs. Then she realized it wasn’t just the crowd guiding her steps. Michael had a protective arm across her back, holding off the bumps of those hurrying behind them.
Up at ground level, Leslie eased away from them, waving and calling goodbye as she headed off on her three-block walk to her apartment.
Tris let Michael lead her to a corner protected from the crowd, the wind and the snow. The storm seemed worse, the snow settling down, preparing to fall over the long haul. The sky was a uniform cloud gray that made it impossible to guess the time of day. It looked as if it might snow forever.
“Michael, I think Leslie might have a point.”
“It’s okay. I’ll get one of the shuttles. I’ll be fine, Tris.”
She’d heard stories about those shuttles. Sometimes they got stuck for hours. In the cold and the snow. And even without that, it could take hours in this weather to go just the couple miles to his stop. And even then he’d be returning to a new apartment: no furniture, no food.
Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) Page 34
