Unforgiven

by Anne Calhoun

  “We can do whatever I want?”

  He nodded.

  “Here’s the plan. I want to go to the Art Institute, but it doesn’t open for a couple of hours, so until then I want to walk along Michigan Avenue. We can window-shop and look at the architecture.”

  She wasn’t sure how a US Marine would feel about shopping, followed by a museum to see Impressionist art, but the odd light in his eyes matched the half smile on his face when he nodded again, then pulled the map from his back pocket and slid it across the table to her. “Want a coffee to go?”

  “Better make it decaf,” she said and stepped outside to orient herself.

  He stuffed her tote bag in his larger backpack, then shouldered it. They opted for the sunny side of the street for the stroll up Michigan Avenue. They crossed the river, stopping on the span to study the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower.

  “They don’t make buildings like that anymore,” Marissa said. “Ornate, elaborate, meant to represent a company or a place’s history and give it a sense of permanence.”

  Adam leaned his elbows on the bridge railing, his sharp eyes taking in the buildings lining the river as he spoke. “Maybe that’s what’s different between now and then. We know nothing lasts forever.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.” She sipped her coffee, then pointed at the bas-relief sculptures on the granite pillars supporting either end of the bridge. “That effort is worth honoring.”

  His gaze turned to hers, the sharpness tempered with understanding. “There’s a difference between honoring something and sacrificing yourself for it.”

  She just lifted her eyebrows at him. The sun streamed along the river, a winding path of water and light through the towers of stone and glass nearly surrounding them.

  He straightened and reached for her hand. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  She let him lead her off the bridge and into the thick of the Magnificent Mile’s upscale shopping. The windows fascinated her, works of art in fabric and color, impossibly thin mannequins dressed in impractical clothes. “Your mother would love this,” she said absently, because the Banana Republic window caught her eye. Adam said nothing when she pushed through the doors, just followed her inside to a long wood table covered with a dusky fabric.

  What appeared on the model to be a thin scarf was actually a large wrap, approximately six feet long by three feet wide, saved from bulkiness by the thin silk fabric. One side started a dark, midnight blue, the color paling through twilight and periwinkle to summer sky blue. The other side was a single shade of grayish blue, or bluish gray. The colors were an exact match for the range of sky she saw on Lake Michigan the day before. Embroidered triangular shapes resembling sailboats quilted the two pieces of fabric together.

  Her heart hiccupped as she looked at it.

  “Pretty,” Adam said beside her.

  It was the most beautiful item of clothing she’d ever seen, meant to be worn over a sleeveless dress to a fancy party, and therefore completely impractical for a construction worker in Walkers Ford, South Dakota. She stroked it with her index finger anyway. The fabric was so fine she registered the sensation of coolness before she felt silk. The price tags were all carefully turned over so only the Banana Republic logo showed, not the actual cost, and when she turned one over she knew why. Three hundred dollars. She turned the tag back over so it matched all the others at the edge of the mahogany table and stepped back.

  “Try it on,” Adam said.

  “There’s nothing to try on,” she replied lightly and took another step back, right into Adam, warm, solid, and unmoving. “One size fits all.”

  He reached around her and unzipped her jacket. “Humor me.”

  He draped her jacket over a chair next to a long, single mirror, then picked up the nearest scarf. For something so large it weighed almost nothing, like the wind. He gathered the fabric and draped it behind her neck, then caught the trailing end and pulled it around and behind. The graduated colors shifted like waves, and the pewter backing was the exact color of a stormy sky. Her hair was caught under the wrap, and as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “It’s not for me,” she replied and unwound it from around her neck. It was for all the sophisticated women living in Chicago, getting their coffee at Intelligentsia and going to the Art Institute every weekend.

  “Why not?”

  “Where would I wear that?”

  “You’re always cold,” he reasoned. “Wear it to weddings and funerals and everything between. Hell, wear it to watch TV. Sleep with it.”

  The thought of her wearing Polartec pajamas, fleece-lined slippers, and a silk wrap in all the shades of Chicago to watch reruns of Ice Road Truckers made her laugh. “I’m too old for security blankets, and I don’t need it,” she said and flipped it back onto the table like she’d flip a top sheet onto the bed. Silk fluttered through the air toward the table. “That’s good because I can’t afford it, either.”

  He watched the fabric settle into stillness, then looked at her, an indecipherable look in his eyes. She broke the stare and picked up her empty coffee cup from the floor. “Did you see a trash can anywhere?”

  “By the door. I’m going to find a bathroom. I’ll meet you down there. The museum’s open.”

  She threw the cup away, then watched people walk across the street, merging and separating on their separate ways. It was about timing, she decided as she waited for Adam. When they stepped off the curb, their speed and direction. Sometimes they made it to the sidewalk without dodging someone. Sometimes they didn’t.

  Timing was everything.

  Adam came up behind her, the backpack over his shoulder. “Ready?”

  They didn’t linger on the trip back to the Art Institute. As they waited in line for tickets, Marissa got her wallet from her purse.

  “Put that away,” Adam said.

  She turned and looked up into his face. In close quarters and flat shoes she realized how much shorter she was. “Please,” she said quietly. “Let this be my treat.”

  His gaze searched hers for a second, then, to her surprise, he put his wallet away and kissed her. “Thank you,” he said.

  She smiled, ridiculously pleased. “My pleasure.”

  They stored their bags and jackets in the coat check. The galleries were an education in themselves. She lingered in the Impressionist rooms, then found Adam in the Architecture and Design galleries. They had lunch in the small cafeteria. She chose food she’d never had before, asparagus quiche and a rich chocolate torte for dessert. The gift shop took another hour as they browsed through books before she chose a magnet, bookmarks, and splurged on a couple of books. Sunshine lifted the temperatures above normal, so they spent the afternoon wandering through Millennium Park until Adam called the pilot and set a departure time.

  “We have to leave,” she said.

  He nodded, and stepped to the curb to hail a cab. This time she knew what to expect and got back in the plane a seasoned traveler. Takeoff was smooth as silk, but the descent through the thick clouds into Sioux Falls left her gripping Adam’s hand hard enough to leave dents in his skin. The ride back to Walkers Ford was quiet, Marissa sorting through her memories, slowly but surely returning to reality, because the wedding was now less than a week away. They turned down the road that led to Walkers Ford, the lights of the town visible to the south, and Brookhaven’s silhouette barely visible a mile down the road.

  The weekend away, as short as it was, only convinced her of two truths. She was home, and he would leave.

  “Why do that for me?” she asked.

  The only sound in the car was the thwack of the windshield wipers and the modern rock station, on low since they left Sioux Falls. Then he said, “Because you’re drowning, Ris. I’m just trying to throw you a life preserver.”

  “I’m not drowning. I’m rooted,” she said, but even as the words left her m
outh, she knew she was lying. Lying to him. Lying to herself. “Do you think I’ll somehow figure out a way to cancel all my debts and pull up over a hundred years of roots and leave South Dakota forever? One day on a boat doesn’t make me a sailor any more than reading every book ever written about sailing does.”

  “Only because you don’t think you can do it,” he said. His voice was even, but his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “You can move mountains, Ris. You’ve done it before. All you have to do is commit.”

  She pursed her lips, but didn’t respond.

  “Fine. Forget I said that. I did it because I thought you would like it, because it was a gift within my reach to give you.” He paused, then said, “I did it for me, too. I’m coming down off an adrenaline high, trying to avoid the crash.”

  That was the most truthful thing she’d heard him say since he walked through Brookhaven’s front door. “So why are you going to school to be an architect?”

  Now he blinked. “What?”

  “If you want the rush, why stick yourself in an office, drawing elevations and blueprints?”

  “I like to build things.”

  She stared at him, disbelief in her open mouth and wide eyes, but he braked to a halt at the top of Brookhaven’s circular drive. “And when did you figure this out?”

  “I have to do something. The SDSU program focuses on sustainable design, and the state needs more architects. It’s as good a job as any.”

  “So how come you get away with ‘as good a job as any’ but I have to see new possibilities? How come I get to go sailing in what will probably be the best day of my life, ever, and you get to join the Marine Corps, then live in a cube farm? Let’s talk about your dreams,” she said, warming up. “Let’s go there.”

  “I don’t get a dream, Marissa.”

  Using her full name meant he was pissed. So was she. “Because of what happened to Josh? I was there, too, Adam. That night I was right there with you. My house, my land, my mantel on the bonfire.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. “That’s another reason why I don’t get a dream. You weren’t on the bike,” he bit off. “You didn’t say what I said, you didn’t take the turn too fast on roads as slick as snot, knowing you could barely handle it and Josh couldn’t.”

  “So you pay forever?”

  His profile was carved from stone, eyes bleak. “Why not? Josh did.”

  “Josh died. You didn’t. I know you, Adam. You like speed, movement, people. You like hard things, testing the limits. You’re smart as hell, but you’re not going to be happy at a desk job. You make things happen. You make other people believe things can happen. That’s why everyone wanted to be where you were in high school, that’s why Keith befriended you when he couldn’t take you down. Architecture sounds like Delaney’s idea of a perfect white-collar, double-income life, maybe enough to let her stay home with the kids. Was it your idea, or hers?”

  She was shouting now, gesturing wildly enough to smack her hand against the Charger’s dash. The pain flashed her back twelve years to arguments in the front seat of his old Challenger, fights that led to make-out sessions that went nowhere. They’d been like caged animals then, trapped behind bars they couldn’t see, only feel.

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was,” he ground out. “I’m in the program, and I’m going through with it.”

  Taking Josh’s place in the Marine Corps and serving five tours was payment enough for the mistake he’d made. She scrambled for options, anything to make him reconsider. “Can you defer a year? At least take some time and think about it.”

  “No. No more time. All this time with nothing to do is making me crazy. I’m in. I’m going to lease one of those apartments. I’m going to grad school. That’s final.”

  She unfastened her seatbelt. “Exactly,” she said softly. “I’m going to finish Brookhaven. I’m going to pay off the home equity loan. And that’s final.”

  “Fine,” he said. “There’s no reason for us not to pick up where we left off twelve years ago.” He’d conducted the conversation while staring fixedly out the front windshield, but now his gaze flicked to hers. Anger and a very familiar sexual arousal mixed with something deeper, something anguished glimmered in the hazel depths.

  Longing, hot and sharp, speared through her. “Oh, no,” she said. “One of us is delusional about our futures, and it’s not me. I can’t afford to fall for you. You being here makes no sense. You don’t belong here, and you won’t stay. But I will, and I can’t go to pieces like I did the last time you left.”

  She hefted her tote from the floorboard and opened the door. He gripped her forearm and prevented her from getting out of the car. His gaze was hot, enticing, everything he’d been twelve years ago, everything he was now. “Fall for me, Ris. I’m staying.”

  How could he give her the space to be someone else, if only for a weekend, yet box himself off so rigidly? She tugged gently. His grip tightened, then relaxed enough for her to pull free. “Thank you for a lovely weekend, Adam. I’ll remember it forever.”

  She’d left the porch light off when she took off thirty-six hours earlier, so she fumbled in the gravelike darkness until she got the key in the lock. Once inside she flicked on the kitchen light. Her tiny apartment remained exactly as she’d left it. She hung her jacket on the row of hooks by the door, got herself a glass of water, checked the weather for the next couple of days, then set about the business of fitting her new self into her old world.

  A bath would help. Hot and liquid and engulfing. While the water ran into the claw-foot tub, she put away her few toiletries. Next she found her new hat. Her underwear, nightshirt, and sweater went into the laundry basket. She pulled out Ben’s peacoat and hung it next to Adam’s gift, her brand-new, bright red jacket, then went back into her bedroom.

  The plastic bag at the bottom of her black tote was dark blue, so only the white ana pub lettering caught the light from the lamp on her nightstand. Slowly she reached in and pulled it out. It didn’t weigh much, only as much as a weekend shaped out of wind and dreams. The drawstring was pulled tight. She opened it, drew out neatly folded tissue paper, and upended it.

  Three hundred dollars of beautiful, useless silk slid into her lap. “Adam,” she said quietly. “Oh, Adam.”

  She snipped the tag off, stood in front of her full-length mirror and wrapped the scarf around her neck, then pulled it off and draped it over her shoulders. As the fabric shifted and slid in the dim light, the colors blended, water and sky and rain around her shoulders. Still wearing the wrap, she went to the kitchen and picked up her old rotary phone and dialed his cell number.

  “Hey,” he said gruffly.

  She rubbed her forehead with her palm. Where to start? “Thank you.”

  A pause. “You’re welcome.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” she said. It was so much, the plane ride and the hotel, the day of sailing, the Art Institute, the wrap. The start of something she thought was doomed and he thought was a new beginning.

  “I wanted to,” he said, still gruff, even a little defensive. “I wanted you to have it. I wanted you to have everything you can dream, everything it’s in my power to give you.”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I said . . . everything I said in the car.”

  “No, you’re not, tough girl,” he replied, amusement clear in his rough voice.

  She laughed. “Okay, that’s true. But I feel the same way about you. I want you to dream, too.” In the silence that followed she heard the Charger’s engine shift into idle. “You’re home.”

  “Yeah. I have to see what Mom’s been up to. Tomorrow I’m going to Brookings to get an apartment. Want to ride along?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re going to get the mantel.”

  Her heart clawed its way into her throat, and birds’ wings fluttered at her temples. “No,” she said quickly. “The weather’s just cloudy with a chance of showers for the next couple of days. I need to re-side Mrs. Carson
’s house.”

  “Ris,” he said quietly.

  She cut him off. “Then . . . then I’ll get the mantel.”

  “I’ll put off the apartment,” he said. “What time are you starting at Mrs. Carson’s?”

  “I don’t need help with either project.”

  “But I need something to do, so you’re doing me a favor. What comes after that?”

  She rubbed her forehead and walked into the bathroom to turn off the water running into the tub. “I have to clean the great hall. The event planners arrive on Friday to start decorating, and the caterer needs to get into the kitchen no later than noon.”

  “You know, I need a date for this wedding,” he said offhandedly.

  “Let’s not do that,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you show up with me, it’ll be scandal and gossip and I’m tired of people talking about you and me.”

  “You weren’t invited to the wedding, were you?” His flat, hard voice made the question a statement.

  “I’m not friends with Delaney, and I think Keith’s one life-form removed from pond scum. Why would I be invited?”

  “Your house is the reception location.”

  “Oh, I’ll be there,” she said lightly. “Working. In the background, making sure the event planners and caterer have everything they need.”

  She didn’t catch all the words that tumbled out of his mouth, but motherfucker featured prominently in the low growl.

  “Better clean up that potty mouth,” she said. “Welcome back to Walkers Ford.”

  16

  MARISSA NEGLECTED TO give him a starting time for Mrs. Carson’s re-siding project, but Adam figured sunrise, or seven thirty, was a good bet. On his way to the job site he swung through the Heirloom Cafe. He waved off the hostess and leaned against the counter to order two large cups of coffee to go. The waitress working the counter went off to pour them. Coffee at the Heirloom wouldn’t win any international awards, but it also wouldn’t taste like week-old battery acid. Their little inside joke, bringing her a cup she could hold. He tried to remember if he’d had anything like that with Delaney. In the beginning she’d been a textbook military girlfriend. Regardless of whether he was stateside, on a WESTPAC cruise, or deployed, packages arrived every week or so, filled with magazines, supplies, and homemade treats his fellow Marines fell on like wolves. He’d matched her efforts with cards and e-mails, flowers, gifts ordered online and shipped to her door in his absence. It was all very Delaney, the right thing to do. But what were their inside jokes, the things that bonded a couple on more than one level?