The Unknown Woman

by Laurie Paige

  Jason’s face turned white. The red spots formed on his cheeks as they had once before when they had asked him about Patti. He opened his mouth, closed it. Finally he turned to the tree, put his forearm on it and pressed his face into the crook of his elbow.

  She felt his sorrow, his regret, his shame, and began to tremble herself. Matt stepped closer to put a supportive hand at the small of her back, and she leaned into him, needing his strength.

  After a moment, when Kerry wondered if they should leave, Jason began to speak. His voice was so hoarse, it was difficult to hear him over the traffic noises.

  “I was with her,” he said. “I didn’t…I didn’t abandon her. She said she felt ill and was going to the restroom, but then I saw her go into one of the patios along the courtyard. I went over there to rescue her before someone thought she was a thief or something.”

  “And then?” Kerry asked.

  “She wasn’t there. The door was open and a lamp was on. The bed had been turned down and…and Patti was on it. I tried to tell her we had to leave, but she held my hand and wouldn’t let go. I realized she was having trouble breathing.”

  Kerry put her arm around Matt and held on as wave after wave of dizziness washed over her. She recalled the patient who had clawed at her throat when she couldn’t breathe.

  “I tried CPR,” Jason said, lifting his head and staring at them, his eyes dark and desperate. “I tried, but she shook her head and…and touched my face…then she simply closed her eyes…as if she’d gone to sleep.”

  The wind through the oak made rustling sounds, as if nature were mourning with them.

  “What happened after that?” Matt demanded.

  “I panicked. I thought of how it would look—me in a hotel room with Patti. The scandal. My father would be furious. He wanted to announce my engagement to someone else during our annual Mardi Gras party.”

  “Dear God,” Kerry whispered, her heart aching for Patti and, oddly, for Jason.

  “Patti was gone, there was nothing else I could do for her, so I left.” His voice was flat and harsh and unforgiving.

  Of himself, Kerry realized.

  Matt urged her to the bench and sat beside her, his arm around her.

  Her eyes met Jason’s.

  “There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can call me that I haven’t said or called myself,” he said bitterly.

  “Did you love her?” she asked softly.

  A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Yes.” Jason’s expressive mouth curled in disgust. “But not enough to defy my father for her. Or to risk scandal. As if it mattered what anyone else thought.”

  On that bitter note, he turned toward the warehouse. “If there’s nothing else…”

  “There is,” Kerry said. She removed the gold ring from her purse. “The medical examiner’s office gave us the things she had with her. This ring was the only valuable item. Did you give it to her?”

  He stared at the ring lying on her palm. “Yes. It’s supposed to represent true love. I guess mine wasn’t very reliable, was it?”

  Kerry held it out toward him. “It looks expensive.

  You probably want it back.”

  “Mon Dieu,” he muttered. He shook his head violently. “Never. I can’t…I can’t touch it.”

  The silence stretched between them again.

  “What should I do with it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. Throw it in the river.”

  With that, he stalked off, heading back to the ware house and the work that must keep him from thinking about Patti and how he’d failed her and betrayed their love.

  From the river, they heard the sound of a calliope playing a lively air. It seemed surreal.

  “Are you okay?” Matt asked after a while.

  She nodded and gave him a wan smile to show him that she really was. “It’s just that I feel so sorry for him.

  Isn’t that odd? I mean, he doesn’t deserve it…”

  “Perhaps he does,” Matt told her. “He lost some thing he may never regain—respect for himself.”

  MATT WAS VERY GENTLE with Kerry that afternoon. They walked along the river for almost two hours. At one point she removed the ring from her purse and contemplated it, then the river. He knew she was thinking of tossing it into the water and letting the river spirit claim it.

  With a sigh, she returned it to her purse.

  He wasn’t indifferent to Patti and her fate or to Jason and his guilt and misery, but he knew he didn’t feel the impact as deeply as Kerry did. She was a sympathetic person and family-oriented.

  While he’d learned from his former fiancée not to take people at face value, he was sure Kerry was sincere in the pity she felt for the young couple. He stayed close but gave her the emotional space she needed to regain her spirits.

  At dusk, they returned to the hotel. Kerry looked weary, but he thought she’d found peace within herself.

  After a quiet dinner in the hotel dining room, they returned to her suite and sat on the enclosed patio, sipping a sweet merlot he’d found on the wine menu.

  “You were wonderful today, Matt,” she said after almost an hour of silence.

  “Hardly.”

  “Yes. You somehow knew I needed to walk and not talk, not even to think, really. You must have been bored, but it was comforting to have you with me.”

  “Being with you doesn’t bore me,” he assured her.

  She gazed at him for a long moment. “I think…I think I may go home on Sunday as originally planned.”

  Somehow he wasn’t surprised by her announcement, but it did send a funny, painful pang right through him. That didn’t surprise him, either. “Let’s not make any hasty decisions,” he suggested carefully. “Things may look brighter tomorrow.”

  Her smile was sweet but unconvinced. “My grandmother often says the same thing.”

  “I hope you believe everything your grandmother tells you,” he said on a lighter note.

  She nodded. “Absolutely.”

  His heart leaped to see she’d regained some of her buoyancy.

  “I think I’ll get ready for bed, maybe catch the news on TV and see if the rest of the world is still out there,” she said.

  “Good idea.”

  She went inside her room and closed the door. He sat there for a while as the night enfolded him completely. Finally he went through his patio to his room. The adjoining door was closed. Okay, she needed some time alone. He could understand that.

  But he didn’t have to like it, he admitted wryly as he slipped into pajama bottoms and settled on a chair to watch the evening news. The world seemed pretty much the same as it had been five days ago when he’d arrived in New Orleans.

  The difference, he concluded, was in himself. He gazed at the closed door.

  When it opened, he thought at first it was his imagination.

  Kerry, dressed in her modest pajamas and wearing her red robe, poked her head around the frame. “My bed or yours?” she asked, her gaze luminous, her manner warm, inviting, trusting.

  He went to her and swept her effortlessly into his arms. “Let’s try them both and see which is the most comfortable.”

  Her soft laughter smoothed all the bumps of the afternoon and stilled the doubts in him. For a while he’d worried that she might not want to have anything to do with him, that she might think he was interested only in the physical relationship between them…that he was as shallow in his feelings as Jason had been with Patti.

  Later, after many sweet kisses and caresses, they shared a last glass of the merlot. He gazed into her eyes, now dreamy with repletion, the haunted look dimmed, although not completely gone.

  In the lamplight, her eyes seemed darker than they really were. The irises were wide and the brown flecks overshadowed the lighter shades of green that seemed to dominate in the sunlight.

  She was a woman of contrasts—candid but with her own feminine mysteries, kind but with a firm code of loyalty that she expected others to share
. He thought Jason had failed in that department and found that he shared her pity for the younger man.

  To have a great love and throw it away was a terrible waste of a priceless gift. His heart gave that funny lurch he’d experienced of late—since he’d met Kerry, he acknowledged, feeling a rush of warmth throughout his being.

  “Kerry,” he murmured when she took a final sip of the wine, then snuggled close as if intent on going to sleep.

  She stifled a yawn. “Yes?”

  “Don’t go home this weekend. I don’t think I can give you up. Not yet,” he added to forestall the refusal he was sure he detected in her eyes.

  Maybe not ever? some curious part of him inquired.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised and closed her eyes as if determined not to speak further about it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KERRY STUDIED the urn while she sipped the hot coffee Matt had served her in bed. He’d ordered breakfast sent to her suite and they’d eaten in there. After the meal, he’d left for an appointment with a reporter who wrote an entertainment column for the local paper. The guy wanted to interview Matt about his impressions of New Orleans.

  From this discussion, she’d learned one more bit of distressing news—Matt had written several bestselling books and was really well known in wine and entertainment circles.

  Sitting on the bed with pillows piled behind her back, she scanned the reporter’s current column. The headline read: Wine Expert Gives His Seal of Approval. That referred to the tasting at the country club the other night. The journalist promised a full feature in Sunday’s paper on Matt’s activities while in the city.

  Not all his activities, she thought. The article wouldn’t mention his strange meeting with her Saturday night and the strange journey they’d been on ever since.

  She sighed, then quickly checked the obituary pages, but there was nothing. Kerry called the paper and spoke to the person in charge of that section. She asked if they’d received any information on Patti Ruoui.

  “Yes,” the woman said, “we received the information from the police report and ran the item Wednesday. I have another call. Is there anything else?”

  “No. Thanks very much.”

  Kerry hung up and perused the urn once more. Wednesday. That was the day she and Matt went to Cajun country to find a resting place for Patti. She wondered if Patti’s aunt and uncle had read their niece’s obituary.

  She had to go back out there, she realized. She had to find the place of Patti’s dreams, not her happiness.

  Somehow knowing this was the last step in the quest, Kerry called her sister. She asked about the children first.

  “The little dears are pretty much cleared up,” Sharon reported. “The two oldest are back in school and Mom took the four-year-old for the day so I could go to lunch with my book club pals. Not that I had a chance to read our latest selection,” she added.

  “I discovered something about Matt today,” Kerry said.

  Her sister chortled. “Does he have a mole in an interesting place?” she teased. “Is he a great lover?”

  Kerry rolled her eyes but answered honestly. “I don’t recall any moles, but yes to the last question.”

  “Oh, Kerry, you are having an adventure,” Sharon said in mock envy. “All we’re having is snowstorms.”

  “Getting back to the subject,” Kerry said pointedly, “Matt not only comes from old money, but apparently has made a bundle on his own. In addition to a regular column in a glitzy magazine, he’s written some books, that did very well.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Sharon squealed in her ear. “Matt Anderson. Of course. My book club read The Good Life two years ago. It was on all the nonfiction bestseller lists for months. His bio said he’d written two others before that, one about selecting wines for a private cellar. I don’t recall what the other was about. Wow, classy circles you’re running in.”

  Kerry agreed, then changed the subject to Patti and the need to find a resting place for her.

  “Did you find any more info on the Ruoui family?” she asked.

  “Some,” Sharon said. “Let me get the printout. I have the name of the plantation where the aunt and uncle live. Apparently it’s across the bayou from the original Ruoui home place.”

  “Hold on. I’ll write that down.”

  “You and Matt are really spending a lot of time together,” Sharon remarked after relating all she had found in newspaper articles on Cordon Rouge and the family that had once inhabited it. “Do you think you’ll keep in touch after you come home?”

  “Why would we?” Kerry asked. “We live in different worlds. I’m sure he would die of boredom in Minnesota.” She managed a light laugh, as if it didn’t really matter.

  “Well, maybe you’ll exchange Christmas cards or hey, he might invite you to New York for a long weekend. You could go to the theater and wine tastings. Maybe you’ll meet his snooty family.”

  “Matt isn’t snooty,” Kerry quickly jumped in to defend him in case her sister had gotten the wrong impression.

  “Obviously,” Sharon agreed. “He sounds like one of the good guys to me. I don’t think you should let go of him so easily.”

  “We don’t have anything in common.”

  There, she’d stated the awful truth of the situation. What did she have in common with a New York wine expert and writer who came from “old money”?

  Not much. Other than the most sizzling physical relationship she’d ever experienced. But their relationship was more than just sex. He’d offered her emotional support. Matt hadn’t drawn away as a lot of men would have when she’d wept or been sad or indignant about the people in Patti’s life.

  “Well, time to get ready for the luncheon,” Sharon said. “See you—are you still coming home on Sunday?”

  “Yes, I think that would be best.”

  “Hmm,” her sister said. “Think about what you’re doing. Take care.”

  “Right,” Kerry said. She clicked off the cell phone. “I think,” she murmured, “that I’ve fallen in love.”

  Was that possible? In less than a week?

  She realized it was going to hurt to leave Matt, much more than it had when she’d returned her fiancé’s ring and wished him and his new love a long and happy life. Much, much more.

  BY THE TIME Matt returned, Kerry was sure of her decisions, all of them. She would mention them at lunch.

  After talking to her sister, she’d also called the airlines. She could still take her scheduled flight out on Sunday or one at the same time the following Wednesday. There was plenty of space on either.

  She questioned the wisdom of prolonging her stay. Each added day would only make it that much more difficult to leave this wonderful man.

  Sighing, she put her personal problems on hold. She had a mission to complete. If her instincts were correct about Patti’s spiritual home, that mission should be fulfilled by tomorrow. Then she could leave on Sunday as planned.

  Observing Matt remove his suit jacket and tie, toss them on a chair, roll up his shirt sleeves, then come to her, she felt as if her heart were being squeezed into a knot as intricate as the one on Patti’s ring.

  “I’m glad that’s over. I prefer being the interviewer, not the interviewee,” he said, then tilted her face to his for a quick kiss.

  His laugh flowed over her, into her, lodging in the very recesses of her heart. She would always remember him and their time in, for her, the most magical city in the world.

  She realized she was already feeling nostalgic about every moment. There weren’t many left to remember.

  “Okay, what’re our plans for the day?” he asked, eyeing her outfit.

  Shortly before he was due back, she’d dressed in a long, full skirt of gold sunflowers on a black background with a white shell under a reverse print shirt of the same sunflower pattern. Her sister had talked her into getting it. At the appreciative look in his eyes, she was glad she had.

  Her hair had lightened from the hours she
’d spent in the sun that week and had formed natural highlights around her face. She’d even gotten a slight tan.

  Glancing in the mirror as Matt pulled her from the chair, she realized she had never looked better. And that she and Matt made a very good-looking couple.

  MATT COULDN’T take his eyes off Kerry at lunch. They’d decided to try a different restaurant in the Quarter for lunch, but something had changed between them, and he didn’t know what. Kerry was back to her talkative self, but she avoided his eyes.

  Yeah, that’s what was different. It was as if she was trying to hide something from him. The idea bothered him more than it should have.

  “Sightseeing,” she suggested during lunch. “Since you’re finished with appointments for the rest of the day, I thought we might stroll through the French Market. I’ve walked down Bourbon Street, but I haven’t been to Basin. Have you?”

  “Not yet. Okay, we’ve got a plan for the afternoon. I thought we could dine in Chez Remy this evening, then, according to the concierge, there’ll be dancing at nine. I want to dance with you again.”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes gleaming, the darker shades around the irises reminding him of the coral he’d explored beneath the sea’s surface. “I love to dance, especially with someone as good as you.”

  “Careful, I’ll get a swelled head.”

  He laughed when she did, and all seemed normal between them. “Ready?” he asked. “I have something I want to get.”

  “What?” She put a hand over her mouth and looked chagrined. “I’m sorry, Matt. I’m treating you like a member of my family. We’re always minding each other’s business.”

  “From what you’ve said, no one gets upset.”

  “Well, sometimes we tell the other person to butt out. I think I’m going to have to tell my sister to do that—”

  When she stopped abruptly, Matt shot her a questioning glance. When Kerry didn’t say more, he asked, “Is she giving you advice about this vacation?”

  “Sort of.”

  That’s all he could get her to admit after they paid the bill and headed up the street. They checked out the French Market, where Matt got a lesson in haggling as, amused and astounded, he listened to Kerry talk a street vendor down to half price, then less as she offered a flat fee for the purses and leather wallets she purchased for various members of her family.