With Her Last Breath

by Cait London

  Now, at thirty-one and divorced, the physical fitness business was what Maggie knew.

  Scout’s black nose did that twitching I-smell-people-food thing; her pink tongue dangled from her mouth and her black eyes pinned Maggie.

  “You are absolutely ruthless. You know I’m running on a few dollars and change. If I can eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a month, you can eat dry dog food. Me, a health professional, whose body is a magnet to fat. It’s supposed to be the off-season here and rooms are cheaper, but you’re a real problem. Not all hotels will allow pets, but hey, we’ve slept in the pickup before, right? We do seem to share the same eau de dog.”

  Scout spotted Lake Michigan and went into her soft whine, eye-pinning, panting, I’m-so-hot water-dog mode.

  “Okay, okay. It’s forty-five degrees, you know. Not exactly tropical. You can play along the shoreline and that’s all.” Tired from the long drive from lower Missouri and needing time to walk and stretch her muscles, Maggie followed the street likely to lead to the lake. The street swung downhill, running parallel to the channel, and she drove slowly down it, leaving the town. With Lake Michigan ahead of her and the channel running alongside the road, Maggie eased onto paved parking lot.

  An elderly man sat on a park bench, considering the boats that passed in the channel. Evidently a tourist site, a manicured park and concrete walk led from the town down to the sandy beach and too much water.

  The blue expanse of glittering waves, the white seagulls bobbing on the surface, took away Maggie’s breath, and terror chilled her body. In the bright cold sunlight, she remembered her sister bobbing like a cork in her life jacket. Glenda had been terrified, but no more than twelve-year-old Maggie. Somehow, their mother had saved them both from that sudden summer squall, dragging them to the upended family sailboat.

  From that moment on, it was only the three of them…

  Maggie shivered beneath her sweatsuit. She’d never forget Glenda’s terror and the sight of their father drowning—his hand, still reaching out to Maggie, then sliding beneath the waves.

  Her mind pulled her back to another time. Her family had gone sailing, laughing and enjoying the day. Then a sudden squall had changed everything, capsizing the boat…

  She forced herself to step onto the sand, to ignore the sink of it beneath her shoes, and made her way to the sprawling beach.

  She released Scout to run on the beach and slowly walked across the sand, struggling against her fear of water. It seemed to always be there, ominously waiting for her…

  Scout leaped into the water and began swimming happily away from shore. Locked in fear, Maggie screamed the dog’s name. “Scout!” She looked at the waves caressing the brown sand and panicked, her scream freezing in her throat; she couldn’t move and she couldn’t save Scout.

  At the top of the street leaving Blanchefleur’s Main Street and leading to the lake, Nick Alessandro dragged air into his lungs. A short distance behind him was his family’s restaurant, and his brother’s pickup was parked along the sidewalk, in front of a small engine repair shop. The owner of a small boatyard, Dante was evidently inside on an errand.

  Nick braced his hands on his knees as he scanned the sandy beach in the distance. In the off-season around Lake Michigan, newcomers were easily noted. He was curious about the woman who had been framed in the shadowy pickup cab, her ponytail pulled through the back of a ballcap, her sunglasses silvery wraparounds.

  Now that white pickup stood alone in the beach’s parking lot, and he wanted to strike back at her.

  Nick resented her intrusion into his private hell, the aching of his lungs, the loneliness and grief of his heart. Somehow she’d peered inside and tangled with his darkness; somehow she knew that he fought what he could not change.

  He should have died that day, not his beloved and his child. But he couldn’t change Alyssa’s death, or their baby’s, one in the same, one in the same, his child within her, just a tiny particle of himself…dreams as shattered as Alyssa after the motorcycle accident.

  Nick’s punishment was to go on living with the knowledge that he could have saved her life, that he should have made her wear that motorcycle helmet that day…

  And somehow the woman had cruised beside him, almost companionably, understanding somehow what he did not.

  At first, the big dog had sat beside her, looking almost human. Then the dog had placed its muzzle on the door’s open window, giving a better view of the woman. Nick had felt just that snap of recognition in the woman before she’d pulled away, as if she, too, had had a disaster in her life.

  He’d heard her call frantically to the dog, “Scout!” Now she was obviously scolding the Labrador retriever as it swam back and came to hunker down on the sand in front of her.

  Focused on the woman, Nick answered his brother’s wave from inside the repair shop with a nod. The breeze from the lake was too cool on Nick’s sweaty body, and he reached into Dante’s pickup to grab a sweatshirt, tugging it on.

  The dog’s breed was water loving. Why would the woman chastise the dog for swimming?

  Nick walked slowly down the concrete walk along the channel toward the beach and the woman. He and his two older brothers had grown up on this same beach, familiar with the sand and grass and tourists, the fishing of Coho salmon, trout, and whitefish.

  He paused in the paved parking lot beside her pickup. From a short distance away, he saw that her sunglasses had been discarded carelessly to the sand. She was crying now, the wind whipping her ponytail, sending a burst of reddish color into the sunlight. She dashed away tears as she fell to her knees, hugging the dog.

  Framed by the wide expanse of sky, water, and brown sand on the empty beach, she looked small and alone.

  Nick glanced down at her pickup’s license plate, noted the Missouri tags, and wondered if she had plans to meet someone at Blanchefleur. Couples often met here; the town’s off-season rates ensured a good room at a cheap price for lovers’ rendezvous.

  At just past three o’clock in the afternoon, the school’s Frisbee crowd hadn’t made it down to the beach with their overloud boom boxes.

  Nick turned, intending to return back up the hill to the town and his family’s restaurant on Main Street. He took a few steps and stopped. The woman wasn’t his concern—nor were her tears. He wouldn’t get involved; he just had time for a shower before starting work at his parents’ restaurant.

  He stopped and swept a hand across the tall beach grass—but then, she had reached into his life for that moment, hadn’t she? Only a stranger passing by, she’d seen his dark storms, the furious life battle he could never win. In just that moment, she’d pushed some wrong button, nettling him as she drove coolly by, leaving him adrift in that endless river of doubts and shadows.

  Nick tilted his head and turned. Tit for tat, he decided darkly, and began walking toward her.

  With one fist, the woman clasped something at her throat, and her other arm tucked the dog tight against her.

  Hugging the dog and murmuring to “Scout,” the woman didn’t see Nick until he stood beside her. Instantly, the dog neatly maneuvered her one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound body between the humans and sat, watching Nick, a protective barrier for her mistress.

  The woman stood abruptly, her hand roughly swiping the tears on her face. Just reaching his shoulder, she had hazel eyes, more meadow green than brown now, and too bright. The sun caught the sheen of tears spiking her dark brown lashes, and Nick resisted reaching out a fingertip to dry them. He wondered if he touched that shimmering dampness, would he feel what ran so deep and aching inside her?

  But beneath the brim of her ballcap her frown forbade him.

  Nick noted the Nordic influence in her face, slanting cheekbones and that rounded jaw. Her long sleek ponytail held the sun in red highlights, the wind flicking at the strands. With winter white buttermilk skin, she’d probably wear more freckles in summer, just across that pert nose. Soft as a baby’s and twice as enchanting, tendr
ils of chestnut-colored silk framed her face, stirring in the wind.

  The curve of her cheek, damp and gleaming, caught him and tossed aside his nasty mood as lightly as a dandelion fluff on the wind.

  The set of her lips and jaw said he wasn’t welcome; the tense lock of her compact body and her fists at her thighs said she was ready to defend herself. Nick adjusted her ethnic mix, adding a drop of fighting Irish. Judging by the dark circles beneath her eyes, she’d lost some sleep. What had happened to make her react defensively, suspiciously?

  But then, Nick decided, the extensive Alessandro family had always been friendly and not too adept at taking hints from loners. He crouched to look at Scout. Nick extended his hand, letting the dog become familiar with his scent. “Nice dog.”

  “Leave her alone.”

  Fear sailed through that sharp, low command. Had someone tried to hurt her dog?

  A gold locket gleamed on the woman’s chest, and Nick realized that was what she had been holding. Small and oval, the locket didn’t require the heavier chain that held it. The contrast was unusual and curious, when women usually matched such things. “Okay, but she seems friendly enough.”

  But then, when a dog extended a paw, it was only polite to shake it. Nick obliged and added a rough ear rub for the favor; the dog leaned into his hand. At least one female on the beach could stand him.

  “New in town?” he asked the woman as he smoothed the dog’s wet coat. However shabby and worn the woman’s green sweatsuit was, the dog’s thick coat reflected good care.

  As he studied her, her body tensed. A curious thing, Nick thought, how the brown and the dark green of her eyes changed with her mood, the gold flecks picking up, stirring in impatient anger.

  But then he was a patient man, set on his course, and someone else’s impatience was his best game. Nick settled in to enjoy who would win the toss—the woman with the gold-green eyes, or him.

  With the ease of a man who admitted his arrogance and a certain amount of charm that he could use when needed, Nick bet on himself.

  “If you’re finished, we’re leaving. Come on, Scout.”

  She stared coolly down at Nick, and with that slight remaining thread of fear, her voice was low and husky. He wondered what it would sound like without the drench of tears. Would the tone be sultry as the air before a summer squall, or light and gentle as a spring breeze?

  There was just that edginess about her, the way she glanced down the empty beach and latched her hand onto the dog’s collar. Nick could almost smell her fear—and apparently, so could the dog, who edged just that protective bit in front of her. “Hello, Scout,” Nick said softly.

  Impatience against patience was one game, fear another. If he could help her in this moment, he would.

  Two small boys, laughing as they played tag, ran along the beach, their mother calling out to them, and, through the inches separating them, Nick could feel the impact of the woman’s rigid body. The hiss of her indrawn breath slid along the wind. In profile and as still as a doe caught in headlights, she followed the flight of the boys, and the gentle longing in her expression, that wistful curve of her lips, couldn’t be missed.

  So his mystery woman had a family, then—somewhere—and she missed them.

  Nick scanned the lake, waves caressing the shoreline where the boys dipped and splashed water at each other. The lake seemed to melt into the clear blue sky as Nick’s thoughts tumbled on. Did she think of her own children? And what kind of a woman would leave them? And why?

  “Let’s go.” The woman abruptly patted her thigh as though tearing herself from another time, and the dog sat, looking up at her and at Nick. “Now, Scout,” she added impatiently.

  When she said, “Treat, Scout?” the dog stood, wagging her tail.

  Because Nick came from an Italian background where “Eat, you’ll feel better,” was a standard cure-all, his instincts told him that she needed a good meal. While Nick was a winegrower, his family served the best food in town. He dug into his pocket, extracted his wallet, and held out a “Good for One Free Meal at Alessandros Italian Restaurant” coupon. Because he sensed her pride wouldn’t allow her to take charity, he said, “It’s a promotion. Trying to get new customers in off-season. No obligation. Just say that Nick sent you. I get points for how many new customers I send in. It’s good food. There’s some health rule about pets being off-limits in the restaurant, but if you say I sent you, they’ll ask you to come back to the private family room, next to the kitchen. Just turn up before they get busy at six.”

  Her indecision said she didn’t like relying on anyone else and questioned gifts or kindness. He followed the swallow down her pale throat, the telltale sign of a hungry stomach. When she reached for the coupon, her hand was squarish and strong, a working hand, nails neatly trimmed. “Sure. Thanks.”

  “Staying around awhile?” he asked, reaching to scratch the dog’s ears. The woman didn’t look like a tourist, set to relax and enjoy the beach. She looked restless and edgy. In contrast, Scout pushed her substantial weight against him, and the sturdy thump of her tail said she was happy.

  Her mistress wasn’t. She frowned at him, eyes shadowed warily. “Maybe. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I get a free meal at the restaurant if I can send someone to take the upstairs room. They take pets.” So he hedged the truth a bit—he’d been raised on his parents’ food, and they loved animals.

  “Expensive?”

  The question was too quick for casual interest. Mystery Woman was down on her luck, needing food and money, and she was fighting pride and tears. “It’s cheap enough. Usually the extra summer help stays there. Mom and Pop Alessandro live upstairs. Their family is grown, and she likes someone in that room. They had a dog like this once. His name was Benny.”

  Nick and his brothers had loved Benny, who had lived to a ripe old age. He’d spent many nights at the foot of Nick’s bed.

  The woman’s hand clutched the coupon as if it were a life-line, knuckles showing white. “Thanks.”

  A guarded loner, Nick thought, as she said, “Treat, Scout” again and began running down the beach. With a huff, the big female Lab followed. Woman and dog ran, side by side, almost one with each other. Nick placed his hands on his hips, admiring the picture, taking note of the woman’s easy stride. Not lithe or willowy, she ran more to the healthy five-foot-six “armful,” as Nick’s father was fond of saying. If she had any body fat at all, it was all in the right places beneath that sweatsuit.

  And that brief glance back at him over her shoulder said she didn’t trust him.

  Because he was still nettled that she’d passed him by so coolly earlier and knew he was fighting his life, Nick smiled—just a little payback for the intrusion. He waved as if they were friends—and she clearly didn’t want to be friendly.

  When he started back up the hill toward town and the restaurant, Nick wondered about the shade of her eyes just then. Were the gold sparks stirring, or were they as green as grass?

  And he wondered why, when the wind feathered through those soft reddish-brown tendrils, something stirred in him…

  Maggie placed the foil-covered pie plate of Italian food on the neat second-story apartment’s small table. There were too many carbs in the pasta, but then she wasn’t complaining about free food. Beneath her apartment, Alessandros Restaurant was in full swing, soft dining music filtering up through the well-varnished board flooring. The sixtyish Alessandros had been bustling and friendly; both had hugged their new renter soundly, surprising Maggie.

  “You’re alone then,” Rosa Alessandro had said, as she’d filled the ravioli dough with a spinach mixture. “No husband coming later, a boyfriend perhaps?”

  “I’m divorced,” Maggie had answered a little too sharply. Ryan’s betrayal, his desertion when she needed him most, still stung. She hadn’t meant for that pain to leap out unexpectedly—he hadn’t believed she’d been attacked; Ryan, her husband, didn’t want to endanger his business to support her… />
  After a long, torturous road of pain and decision, she blamed herself, not Ryan. Her choices were as she made them—but she would never regret fighting for Glenda, risking everything.

  “You’ll be comfortable here,” Rosa had said, one woman sensing another’s pain. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Are you needing protection?” she had asked cautiously.

  “I’m trying to start a new life by myself,” Maggie had said quietly.

  At that, Rosa had hugged her again, adding a kiss on her cheek that surprised Maggie. The soft gush of motherly Italian words stunned her. It had been years since she’d been comforted, and she truly appreciated the gift. “Thank you. Whatever you said, you have no idea how much it means to me.”

  Rosa smiled warmly. “Poor little bird, you have come to the right place. This will be your new home.”

  The building had a comfortable, worn feeling, as though lives had passed happily there, and without even looking at the apartment, Maggie had taken it at the affordable price. Mr. and Mrs. Alessandro had merely given her directions upstairs from the restaurant’s kitchen. They’d told her to bring the plate, fork, and spaghetti spoon down to the kitchen later, and that meals—whatever was the daily special—came with the room. If she got hungry between times, she was to use the family’s private, roomy kitchen, dishing up the leftovers from the refrigerator; cleaning up the kitchen’s range was a must. Rosa spoke like a woman who had run a family, giving Maggie no more, no less firm instructions than she would give her sons.

  While the large family kitchen behind the commercial one looked comfortable, with the muted sounds of the restaurant on the other side, Maggie preferred to eat alone.

  The Alessandros’ upstairs apartment was across from hers, and that gave Maggie an odd sense of safety and homecoming.

  Safety fled when Maggie noted the ancient door lock and the skeleton key. Experience told her that a chair backed into the knob and a rubber wedge beneath the door would offer some comfort, but a child could open the lock.