Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  ''What?"

  He made her tell him everything. It was like pulling teeth; she was as reluctant a witness as he'd ever interrogated. Exasperated, he finally said, "You didn't report this to the police. You didn't tell me. How do you expect us to know about this, for God's sake? By reading tea leaves?"

  She rounded on him and said, "Well, I've told you now, haven't I — and look what's happened. We've brought the outside world here, into Acadia. Who cares about ransacked toys? Who cares about police politics, for that matter? We can't care, because there's nothing either of us can do about the other's problems. All we can do is enjoy what we have. Here. Now."

  She climbed back on her bike and rode off angrily.

  She was right. God help them both, she was right. Wyler's days in Bar Harbor were numbered; they'd known that from the start. It was absurd to think that he could just up and forget about the ransacking, but he could set it aside. For here. For now. Just as Meg could set his career — and her sister — aside. For here. For now.

  They resumed their journey south, riding in silence. The plaintive sound of the swaying balsams gradually resumed its hypnotic hold on Wyler, and his spirit became serene once more. They saw no one else. He began to think that she'd led him to some enchanted, primeval place where only they existed.

  They passed a couple of sailboats moored in a picturesque cove, then headed north alongside an open meadow surrounding a quiet, picture-perfect pond. Meg pointed to a small boathouse hanging over the water.

  "We can stop here for an early lunch, if you like," she said. He did like. He wanted to put things right again between them, and that wasn't possible when they were riding alongside each other.

  They walked their bikes through the meadow, scaring up crickets in their path, and laid them against the wraparound deck of the little shingled building.

  The boathouse, still privately owned, was in perfect repair. They peeked through multipaned windows and discovered a small rowboat floating inside the locked doors, ready to save lives or to carry away guests who were lucky enough to have access to it.

  Wyler whistled softly in admiration. Who had this kind of money? Okay, the answer was easy enough — the Rockefellers — but really; who had this kind of money?

  They sat down in the shade of the freshly painted deck. With an ironic flourish, Wyler opened Meg's box lunch for her: roast-beef sub, brownie, carton of lemonade.

  "I have a feeling that caviar's a more common snack on this deck," he said, hating Mr. Rockefeller and all his kin, despite their generosity to the public.

  "This is perfect," Meg said with a smile that left him begging for more.

  She sat back against the building and took an appreciative bite out of her sub. He did too, while they gazed in lazy contentment at the scene before them: a field of golden grass rolling gently down to a pond of clear water dotted with white lilies and—yes, he had to admit—charmingly picturesque patches of seaweed.

  To the south and west was the enchanted forest they'd just ridden through, and beyond that, the sea. To the north, a trio of mountaintops reminded him, if he needed reminding, that this was not Illinois. It was an unbelievably lovely sight. If some hack painter had decided to put one of everything scenic into a single painting, this was what he'd come up with.

  "You're not really envious of the owners, are you?" she asked him suddenly.

  Amazed by the question, he said, "Of course I am. I'll admit it; I'm not proud: it bugs the hell out of me." He added, "Doesn't all the wealth bother you?"

  She laughed. "You're kidding. Who would I be jealous of? Some poor guy in a sealed-in office in Manhattan who's trying to do right by the family fortune? We're the ones with the view. We 're the ones with the picnic lunch."

  "We're the ones with each other," he said, reaching out to caress her cheek. He had to do it; she was completely irresistible to him.

  Meg's cheek flushed a deep rose, as if his touch had burned her; it gave him an absurd amount of pleasure to see it. They went on eating in companionable silence.

  One of Meg's bigger speeches came when she pointed to a water-lily leaf and said simply, "Frog."

  He was struck anew with the difference between Meg and her sister. Allie would've jumped up and said, "Oh, look, a little green frog, isn't it cute, let's try to catch it, we'll take off our shoes and wade in after it, come on, are you game?"

  Yep. Allie made him feel young, all right. But Meg — he glanced at the woman enjoying the scene so contentedly — Meg made him feel whole.

  It was a nice old frog, sitting in the sun and minding its own business. Wyler was happy to leave it that way.

  They finished their sandwiches and Wyler was careful to pick up every last crumb. It was the least he could do for the poor joker in Manhattan.

  After that they ate their brownies and drank their lemonade and — somehow or other — Wyler ended up telling Meg about the shootout in Chicago that had cost him a piece of his thighbone and a chunk of his confidence.

  It was a violation of her Acadia rules; he knew that. But he had to let her know that he wasn't going back merely to be captain, or superintendent, or ambassador to Rome for that matter. He was going back to Chicago to prove that he could go back.

  He had to. Everything he was, everything he'd ever struggled to be, was in Chicago. He felt honor bound to explain that to her. Here. Now. In this magic place where silence was golden, and words, if they were to be spoken at all, had to mean something.

  Oddly enough, Meg didn't turn away from the subject the way she did when he'd talked about his ambitions on the force. Maybe it was because the outcome of the shootout — a little girl murdered, her stepfather killed, a copper wounded — touched her maternal instincts. Whatever the reason, Meg seemed to want to hear him out.

  "But why are you blaming yourself?" she asked when he was done. "From what you say, these hostage, or barricade, situations are extremely unpredictable. You couldn't have known that the man had another gun besides the one he threw out."

  "You have to assume it," he said in a grim voice.

  "But what difference could you have made?" Meg argued gently. "The little girl was already dead when you got there."

  "Her stepfather wasn't. The negotiators were right," he insisted doggedly, "and I was wrong. I never should've gone anywhere near the kill zone. The guy was clearly suicidal. I was his hand-picked audience. I've racked my brain, trying to remember him. But sixth grade was a long time ago. I don't know how the hell he remembered me, or why I was important to him.

  "All I know is, he was waiting for me. He expected to be taken out, and he wasn't disappointed. I don't even think he wanted to hurt me. He only wanted to die. Suicide by cop: it's a modern phenomenon. And I played right into it."

  "You're a homicide detective, not a hostage expert."

  "Right," he said bleakly. "Good detective, lousy cop."

  Meg wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at her ankles. "The girl was only four?"

  "Yeah," he said morosely.

  "Do you know why he shot her?"

  Wyler shrugged. "He'd just got fired. His girlfriend was leaving him. A double whammy. He'd planned to take her out, too, but she managed to get away."

  Wyler closed his eyes. The event washed over him with a pain more searing than the rip of the bullet through his thigh. He'd done everything he knew how to put that saga behind him. Nothing had worked. Thinking about it, not thinking about it; talking about it, not talking about it — nothing had worked.

  He stared at the frog, so close that you could have thrown a potato at it, and began being sucked back into a depression. Christ, he thought. Not here. Not now.

  "Tom," she said softly. "Let it go. It's over."

  He opened his eyes and turned to her, and she put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him. Her lips were warm, her skin petal soft from their exertions on the trails. Her hair clung to her neck in dark, damp strands and she smelled, not of designer perfume like her sister, but of somethin
g more elemental and infinitely more appealing: the warm, seductive scent of a woman.

  He shuddered and returned the kiss, turning it into something more, his tongue deep inside her mouth, his hands sliding restlessly across her back. Meg moaned softly, sending his arousal to a new, more fervent pitch. He kissed her with wet, random caresses, ending at the hollow of her throat, chanting her name again and again, lost in the wonder of his hunger for her.

  She was wearing a sleeveless blouse the color of gold wildflowers. He unbuttoned the top buttons, sliding his mouth to the top of her breast, cupping her breast in his hand, some primitive part of him relishing its weight. Earth goddess, he thought, not for the first time. He wanted to come to her, into her, to encircle her and have her legs surround him.

  He slipped her bra away from her breast and kissed the nipple, teasing and tasting until it was swollen and erect. Meg gasped and arched herself into his kiss; the slow, shuddering intake of her breath reminded him of the sound the swaying balsams had made high over their heads in the woods.

  She was silent, not protesting with pretty words, not even uttering his name; nothing. The effect on him was profoundly erotic; he felt as if he was making love to some mythic creature, half goddess, half woman.

  He lifted his head from Meg's breast and watched her face, her closed eyes, her partly opened mouth, as he slid open the zipper of her cutoffs and slipped his hand inside, stroking and petting, making her wet. Her arousal made her more beautiful than ever to him: her high cheekbones, flushed with desire; her soft brown lashes, caught together in tears; her full, unpainted mouth, erotically, invitingly parted.

  He was hard in a way he'd never thought it was possible to be, hard enough that he ached. He bent his head over hers and kissed her again, awestruck by the depth of her arousal, wildly frustrated by the depth of his own.

  "Meg ... ah, Meggie ... let me make love to you," he whispered into her parted lips.

  A tear slid from under her eyelid, down her cheek. She put her hands behind his neck and kissed him deeply, her desire rippling through her.

  "But not here," she murmured.

  Only then did it occur to him that he had Meg half undressed on the deck of a boathouse positioned over a pond by an open meadow.

  "Yes, you're right," he said with a shaky laugh. "It'd be an abuse of the Rockefeller hospitality."

  Meg put herself back together and he helped her to her feet, his heart light with longing for her. He wanted to make love to her somewhere in the deep grasses of the meadow. He'd never made love in a meadow. He gathered up their lunch boxes and walked alongside her to their bikes, scanning the meadow beyond for a place well hidden.

  He stuffed the cardboard boxes into his bike basket, then turned to Meg and put his hands on her waist and looked deeply, almost wistfully, into her hazel eyes, wanting to see desire there.

  But he saw only pain.

  "We can't do this, Tom," she said, sending his expectations into a nose dive.

  "Sure we can," he whispered coaxingly, all too familiar with what was coming next.

  "Allie —"

  "No," he said, this time putting his hand over her mouth. "No Allie. Not in Acadia."

  "But she is here," Meg said softly. "And here," she added, taking his hand and laying it over her heart. "What can I do?"

  He stared at her uncomprehendingly. Automatically he pulled his hand away from between hers and used it to rake through his hair. "What can you do? It's obvious, Meg," he said, his voice thick with impatience. "You can let her grow up! You can grow up! Jesus!" he said, whacking the rail behind him with a fist.

  "We've been all through this, Meg," he said, forcing himself to speak in a slightly calmer voice. "You're not doing her any favors protecting her emotionally all the time. I don't know why in hell Allie has taken such a shine to me; but I do not want your sister! Call me crazy — but it's you I want, Meg. And you know you want me."

  "Just because two people want each other doesn't mean —"

  "Listen to me! You're not married! I'm not married. This is not immoral!" he said, beside himself with frustration.

  Her mouth set in a line of determination he knew well. "I think we have to leave," she said quietly. She untangled her bike from his and swung one leg over the seat.

  "I don't think so," he said harshly. "You go ahead. I'll find my own way back." He was hopping mad; testosterone was running amok through his system. He needed time to work it off.

  "Are you sure?" Meg asked in a small, apologetic voice.

  " Go."

  Chapter 18

  Hours later, Wyler was in his cabin and still fuming. Who the hell did she think she was? Didn't she have any idea what had happened between them? Of course she did! How could she just turn herself off that way? Damn her!

  What exactly were you supposed to do when a woman looked and acted ... oh, God. Like that. He remembered her face when he had her in his arms and fell into a mood so black with hunger that it left him weak-kneed. Filled with self- pity, he lay back on his lumpy mattress and picked up his Grisham novel.

  Aagh!

  He flung the book across the room and began stalking back and forth again.

  So what the hell was he supposed to do now? Sit in this dreary cabin and rot? He'd lied through his teeth when he'd put on a happy face at the picnic and raved about the cabin, about how rustic it was and — what, charming, did he say? Shit. It was nothing like his room at the Elm Tree Inn. That was rustic and charming. This was a log cabin with bare furnishings, a balky hot water heater, and no screens, which— considering that flies in Maine were the size of hummingbirds and mosquitoes in Maine were the size of flies — struck him as a pretty dumb oversight.

  He had to ask himself again: Why, exactly, was he staying on?

  The answer, again, was: He didn't know. He was staying on because he didn't know why he was staying on, and he wanted to find out.

  It couldn't be for the sex. For one thing, the possibility of making love to Meg Hazard was looking remote. For another, sex was something available anytime, anywhere. Why knock himself out trying with this one woman? There was the standard reason — a man always wants what he can't have — but somehow Wyler wasn't happy with that answer.

  He sat back down on the edge of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. Had he fallen in love with her?

  He didn't know. He'd only fallen in love once before in his life, and that hadn't felt anything like the way he was feeling now. With Lydia it had all been so straightforward. They hit it off, he made a move, she welcomed it, they dated for a few months, they got engaged, they got married, they had a baby.

  There were no major impediments to overcome — none that they could see at the time, anyway. But with Meg there were all kinds of obstacles. There was Allie. Her grandmother's ghost. An alleged crime. Geography. Family. Loyalty. Duty. A stupid dollhouse, for God's sake.

  He heard a knock at the door without having heard a car pull up. His first triumphant thought was, She's come by bike to say she's sorry.

  Heart pounding maniacally in his breast, he swung open the door to: Allie Atwells.

  This he hadn't expected. She was a day early, dressed in a white-and-yellow jumpsuit with an interesting neckline that would've looked hokey on Meg but looked undeniably sensational on her. In general, he decided, Allie looked radiant. He'd forgotten how stunning a woman she was.

  Her first words were, "I love your toddlin' town!"

  "Welcome back," he said, his spirits hauled forcibly out of the ditch by hers. "Where's your car?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  "Back at the road," she answered. "Your drive's too potholed," she added, bouncing past him into the living area. She took a seat on the couch, the only decent piece of furniture in the place, and crossed her legs in a Buddha pose. It was a mystery to him how she could combine such poise and such childish glee in one simple contortion.

  She came straight to the point. Or points. "I got an offer!" she said elatedly. "At least
one, the one as assistant manager at the Castle Inn on Halsted. The manager told me that as soon as he rolled my videotape, he knew that I was the one. He said experience isn't nearly as important as the fact that I'm obviously not afraid to work long hours —"

  With a startled laugh he said, "Excuse me?"

  "Wait; that's not the best part. In the bigger hotels you'd have to be prepared to move every couple of years, but the Castle Inn is it; it's not a chain."

  "Isn't that a bit of a dead end for you, then?"

  Puzzled, she said, "But it's on Halsted. It's close to where you work."

  "What about the one at the Westin?" he urged. "Wouldn't that be better for your career?"

  "My career?" she repeated, as if he'd just spoken to her in Russian. "The Westin is a lower-level job — desk clerk — and it's not at all convenient to where you are... ."

  "But it's a Westin," he insisted. "You told me yourself that the best hotels promote from within. Shouldn't you have that in mind when you start somewhere?"

  Impatiently she said, "Well, you never know. I might get an offer. But I'm really not interested. The Castle Inn is just so close," she said enthusiastically.

  Her eyes were bright with what he could only call willingness. It was obvious that she was waiting for him to show her just how great he thought the offer was. He wasn't able to do that. So he jumped up from the couch and said, "Coke, cider, seltzer — what'll you have?"

  She looked surprised by his manic leap, but she answered, "Coke's fine."

  She went back to the Castle Inn. "Think how close we'd be.

  We wouldn't even have to fight rush-hour traffic — which I have to admit, is a real horror story out there — to meet at club or for lunch or dancing or ... or whatever!"

  He filled two glasses with ice and thought, Too far, it's gone way too far already. How do I jam a stick in her wheel without sending her flying over the handlebars? "Yeah, well, my screwy hours ..." he mumbled, trailing off.

  "Thomas Wyler," she said in a low voice very close to his ear. "What is the matter with you?"

  He turned and there she was: ready, willing, and willing. It was so obvious from the flush in her face; from the pouting expression on her lips; from the way she held herself for the embrace she was expecting to come. Dammit, why wouldn't she be expecting him to take her in his arms? He'd done it before, hadn't he? Hell, why not? God knows there were no obstacles standing in their way.