by Anne Calhoun
“Send me a picture of the new tooth,” he said. “Be safe.”
“You, too, in that crazy Manhattan traffic,” she said.
The call disconnected. Without taking his eyes off the fantasy landscape, Seth slid his phone into his pocket. The knight was a woman, like the lionesses he’d served with—female Marines tasked with searching female Iraqis at roadblocks. The shape was subtle, just a hint of curves in the breastplate, blonde paper hair under the helmet obscuring her face. The resolute set of her shoulders and grip on the sword reminded him of Arden.
Upright, coherent, and fighting. He lived and fought with female Marines, had blunt conversations with them about the physiological response to fear and shock, to a massive adrenaline dump, to being in a fight for your life. All that adrenaline had to go somewhere. Being on the receiving end of passion that honest and desperate was the hottest thing to happen to him in years. Even the role reversal, the nuances of power and money in play, sent an electric charge skittering over his nerves.
Then it hit him, the thing that was really different. When he was with her, he heard things. Her breathing. Her heartbeat, the soft, shocked noises she made when he pushed into her, tightened his hand on her hip, lowered his chest to her back. The hours he’d spent with Arden, he heard the world again.
Why not ask her out? You have her number.
He looked over his shoulder at his bike, the only mode of transportation he owned at the moment, then mentally compared his motor home to Arden’s apartment. He got points for creative living, a small environmental footprint, but he could probably fit his entire living space—cab, kitchen, dining table, bathroom, bed—into her living room/bathroom/bedroom floor. The motor home wasn’t one of the new, six-figure models made by Mercedes, currently in favor with retirees on the move. It was about thirty years old, and if the pumps and hoses didn’t blow on the way back to Wyoming, he’d count himself lucky.
He looked past the clutter of apps on his phone to the background, the same favorite picture of the four of them. The four of them, wearing full combat gear, cradling rifles like babies, and deliriously happy in the middle of a war zone. Together. Alive. In their faces he saw Phil, Brittany, Baby B.
That’s why he wouldn’t call her. He didn’t die in Afghanistan, but three other Marines did. Their deaths, his survival, dictated the terms of his life: to serve the people left behind. Taking care of people made him who he was, what made him check in with Ryan Hamilton, but there were limits to how much he could give outside of his family from the Corps. He wasn’t going to ask her on a date, because she hadn’t even told him who she was. Maybe she assumed he knew and didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t his place to bring it up. She knew what she wanted, and that suited him just fine. If sleeping with him helped her deal, it was just another way to have “get on with life” sex.
He took one last look at the hopeless situation in the stationery shop window, the dragon laying waste to the landscape, the lone knight defending the civilians. Then he got back on the bike and searched the delivery app for another run.
– SIX –
“We’re here, Ms. MacCarren.”
Arden snapped out of her reverie and looked through the tinted windows at West Village Stationery’s eye-catching window display of a single knight bravely holding an enormous paper fire-breathing dragon at bay with a sword while the villagers scrambled for the safety of the castle walls. As accustomed as she was to the creativity normally on display in Manhattan’s shop windows, this one caught Arden entirely by surprise.
She knew how that knight felt. Wearing a version of armor, facing insurmountable odds, refusing to back down.
When she didn’t move, Derek hitched around in the driver’s seat. “West Village Stationery, right?” he said over the sound of the flashing hazard lights. They were double-parked in the right-hand lane, and even on a Saturday morning, someone would honk.
“Right. Thank you, Derek,” she said.
In the space of a year, Tilda Davies’s shop had gone from yet another stationery shop to an international sensation, helped along by her role as agent for Sheba Clark’s latest works. Buying the present here would please Mel, who liked both the traditional elegance of paper and cutting-edge art. Hence the trip downtown for the gift before going back uptown to the shower at an apartment on Central Park West.
Arden settled her sunglasses firmly on her nose, opened the passenger door, and swung her legs out, feeling for the street, then tucked her handbag into the crook of her elbow. Only after she stepped between the cars and onto the sidewalk did she realize she was holding her breath.
Breathing seemed so simple until your body resisted doing it.
She forced herself to exhale, which would automatically generate an inhale, then opened the door and walked into the elegant interior, created with polished maple flooring, white walls and cabinets, and glass cases displaying pens, pencils, leather journals, and address books. The walls held pictures and several Sheba pieces with sold labels discreetly placed over the prices, and the window display of the knight and dragon cast a gorgeous shadow on the maple floor.
If the woman straightening a shelf holding cloth-covered journals recognized Arden, she didn’t show it. Her gaze flicked appreciatively over Arden’s couture suit, perhaps a bit fancy for a baby shower, but wearing it lifted her spirits. “May I help you?”
“I’m looking for a baby shower gift,” Arden said.
“We have several lovely options.” She led Arden to a display in the corner by the window. Leather baby books in shades ranging from classic white to baby blue and pink to vibrant shades of red, purple, and green. “It’s a husband-and-wife team based in Maine. He tans and dyes the leather and sews it together. She makes the paper and does the calligraphy. Each one is unique,” she said, opening two on a table to their right so Arden could see the pages, hand-drawn and lettered like an illuminated Bible, whimsical fairies in one, teddy bears in another, dragons in a third.
The dragons, charming infants emerging from shells, breathing fire with surprised expressions, curled up to nap by a mama dragon’s side, reminded her of Seth. “They’re exquisite,” Arden said, setting aside the dragons in their butter-soft green leather cover to pick up one in midnight blue. Constellations decorated the pages inside.
“They make a limited number. We don’t expect another shipment until the first of the year,” the shop assistant said.
“Choosing one will be the difficult part,” Arden said. Melissa was having a girl, but had also gone through a rather enthusiastic comic book–cosplay phase in college. She might appreciate the superheroine book with the dark violet cover. “This one,” Arden said, then wandered over to the shelf of journals. One caught her eye, red leather with a snap closure and slots so the blank pages could be removed and new folios inserted. It appealed to her, for drawing and journaling. “And this, please.”
“May I wrap these for you?”
“Just the baby book. I’ll take the journal,” she said, and tucked the red leather book in her bag. “I’d also like to get something for the mother-to-be. Do you have any of Sheba Clark’s pieces left?”
“Only small ones, in the display case,” the assistant said regretfully.
Arden followed her to the counter in the center of the store. While the assistant wrapped the book, she chose a Central Park West scene in which the seasons overlaid each other, winter blending to spring, then summer into fall. It was almost the exact view from Melissa’s apartment. “Wrap this as well, please,” she said.
She handed over her credit card and was texting Derek when a door opened in the back wall. Tilda Davies, tall and slender with riotous black curls, walked out of the space, followed by a whipcord-lean blond man. Their eyes met. Arden’s heart kicked hard against her breastbone before rabbiting off into the red zone, her gut lurched, and a cold sweat broke out at her temples before her brain made sense of what she was seeing.
Special Agent Daniel Logan. His name was u
nforgettable. He’d handed her a search warrant while the FBI streamed through the front doors at Breakers Point. Of course Arden knew of Tilda, had even met her once or twice. But how was Tilda connected to Daniel Logan, one of the agents working on the MacCarren case? Was it a setup of some kind? Had she been lured out of her apartment into a trap to arrest her in some horrible, public way?
The thought spun wildly in her brain, drilling deep into her fight-or-flight response. Her heart rate soared and her breathing halted, leaving her light-headed and dry-mouthed, until the sunlight streaming through the windows glinted off gold, and sanity returned.
Agent Logan was holding Tilda Davies’s hand. Arden looked at Tilda’s left hand, then Agent Logan’s. Gold ring. A slender platinum band on Tilda’s fingers, and no other jewelry but a Cartier Love bracelet on her left wrist. The casual intimacy and the age-old symbols clicked. Married. They were married. Tilda Davies was married to the FBI agent instrumental in bringing down MacCarren.
For a moment, no one spoke, then Agent Logan murmured something into Tilda’s ear. She nodded, turned her head for a quick kiss, and let him go.
“Ma’am,” he said quietly. There was something of the courtier’s bow in the way he inclined his head as he passed her.
Tilda stepped behind the counter, and the assistant, bless her hardworking little heart, said, “She’s taking a Fiorentina journal, one of the Kinney baby books, and a Sheba for the mom-to-be.”
“Those baby books are truly one of a kind, and so beautifully done. She’ll love it,” Tilda said.
“Yes,” Arden said, latching onto the normal, if superficial, conversation. “I’m sure she will.”
The assistant handed over the bag and went back to the shelf of journals. Arden and Tilda stared at each other, and for a moment, Arden was wildly jealous of the woman’s composure.
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“We eloped last December. It was all very whirlwind, never formally announced, and I kept my maiden name,” Tilda said in an exceedingly British way that somehow made the uncomfortable situation entirely her fault, not Arden’s. “I’m very sorry for your trouble.”
What had Agent Logan told his wife over dinner? The story was all over the news media, and Arden’s skin crawled at this immediate, potent reminder of exactly how public her life was at the moment. But Tilda’s eyes were kind, sincere. Like she knew trouble all too well.
“Thank you,” Arden said.
Her phone buzzed. Derek was outside in the SUV, blocking traffic. “Excuse me,” she said, and took the bag and hurried out the shop’s door. Derek met her at the back passenger door, opened it, handed her in. Arden fumbled with her seat belt as Derek climbed in and merged into traffic.
So much for normal.
Her hands trembled as she reached into her handbag and found the leather book she’d just purchased, and the pencil case she’d bought when she picked up her drawing supplies for the class. Pencils splayed over the backseat before she got one tucked between her index and middle finger. She remembered Seth’s words. Don’t look. Just draw.
Something simple. A contour drawing of the bag. A rectangle, sitting on the smooth leather seat, the arcs of the handles. No fussy tissue emerging from the top of the bag, which was a relief. Clean lines. Find the line and follow it in the light filtered by the tinted windows. Don’t look at the page. In this moment, all you have to do is see the thing in front of you, its emptiness, straight lines, its clarity.
Her heart rate declined in hitches and starts as the SUV crawled uptown. Resolute, she blocked out everything except the feel of the pencil between her fingers, the page under her hand, the gray bag with its discreet West Village Stationery logo in a dark gray the color of Tilda’s eyes. Something in her brain disconnected, and when Derek said, “We’re here,” she came back to reality with a start.
She’d added a dragon to the bag. A poorly drawn dragon with one weirdly bulging eye and a snout that looked more like a horse’s head than a fierce, predatory beast, but it was clawing its way out of the bag with as much determination as Seth’s prowled down his chest.
She looked out the window. They should have come uptown on Eighth Avenue and pulled to the side by Central Park, but instead they faced downtown again. Derek had made the block to ensure she could exit the car right under the awning. Until recently he’d done this so she didn’t have to cross a street. Now, she realized, he did it so she could hurry into the building.
“Thank you, Derek,” she said.
“My pleasure, miss,” he replied.
“I’ll be a couple of hours,” she said. “Park somewhere and take a walk. It’s too nice a day to be inside.”
The doorman opened her door. She stuffed the new journal back in her bag, grabbed both the handbag and the gift bag, and hurried across the wide sidewalk to the door, held open by another doorman.
“Arden MacCarren to see Melissa Schumann,” she said.
The doorman buzzed the apartment and repeated her name. His face changed ever so slightly at the response. “Ms. Schumann says she’ll be down in a moment.”
Arden froze in shock.
“You can wait over there,” he added, not unkindly, and pointed at a pair of wingback chairs grouped around a low mahogany table. An aspidistra and a fern sheltered the occupants from street view. Moving on autopilot, Arden walked over to the chair and sank into it. She set the gifts on the table, smoothed the perfectly tied ribbon as an all-too-familiar emotion crawled up her spine. Shame.
Two women walked past, chattering away. Arden recognized both of them, both school friends who’d known Mel as long as she had. They looked at her, then kept walking right up to the elevator. Exclamations of greetings, a third voice, then Melissa emerged.
“You don’t have to say one word to her,” said one of the new arrivals.
Something indistinct but firm from Melissa. Arden smoothed the ribbon again, and following the lines with her gaze as she trailed her finger along the grosgrain edge.
“Arden. Hi. Thanks for coming.”
“Hello, Melissa. You look wonderful.” She did, tall and slender, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, her skin glowing, the baby a pretty basketball under her silk maternity dress. From the back she wouldn’t look pregnant at all.
Melissa didn’t lean in for a kiss. “Arden, I’m sorry. I thought it would be all right if you came, but then Geneva called me last night, in tears. Apparently Randall had invested more than he’d let on in MacCarren, and . . .” Melissa’s voice trailed off.
“And she can’t stand to be in the same room with me right now.”
“I’m sorry. She’s one of my oldest friends—”
“I’m one of your oldest friends, too. We all met at Tripp Lake, remember?”
“I know. I just don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. She’s a wreck, not sure if they’ll be able to buy the place in Vail after all.”
Arden forced a smile onto her face. “I understand, Mel. Really. I do.”
“You’re stronger than she is, Arden,” Melissa said stoutly. “She fell apart when it rained through the cabin’s screens. You led us three miles through the wilderness, remember? You’ll get through this. You get through everything.”
She barely remembered that girl, the one who led them to the meeting point when they were lost in the Adirondacks, back when kids could get lost at summer camp. “It wasn’t three miles, Mel,” she said, and reached for the wrapped presents. “But thanks for the vote of confidence. For you and baby girl Schumann.”
Mel sat down in the other wingback and unwrapped the presents. “Oh, Arden,” she breathed, when she unwrapped the baby book and opened the pages to the hand-inked superheroine drawings. “You remembered. This is gorgeous. And something else? A Sheba?” She looked up. “Arden. You shouldn’t have.”
“Congratulations, Mel,” she said as sincerely as she could muster. Keeping her voice even, pleasant, unaffected took most of her effort.
“Thank
you so very much. I’m sorry about this.”
“So am I,” Arden said.
Mel gave her an awkward hug, one-armed, shoulders only, and mostly behind the aspidistra. She turned and went back to the elevators. Arden settled her sunglasses on her nose, straightened her spine, and walked out the door. She could text Derek and have him get her car out of the parking garage, but she’d given him the impression he could have a couple of hours to himself.
Traffic flowed past on Central Park West, the bus’s air brakes whooshing when it made the corner, heading for Broadway. Across the street, Central Park’s giant trees and shaded paths beckoned. It was surprising how quiet the interior of the park could be, given that over a million people lived on the island of Manhattan, and on any given day another million visited for one reason or another. All she had to do was cross the street. Most days she barely had to talk herself into it. But today, with her nerves shot and her stomach in knots, it took every ounce of concentration she could muster.
She turned right and walked to the corner, where a traffic signal would halt the rush of cabs, buses, cars, bikes, scooters, motorcycles. The light turned green and the little white walk man appeared, but Arden couldn’t move. The man started to flash red, then went solid. She waited, watching the light. The moment the little white man appeared, his sturdy legs striding confidently forward, she inched into the street. Look left, look right, double yellow line, look right, look left, the cars are stopped, they’re all stopped, no one is turning, two more steps, there’s the curb.
No one stared at her. This was Manhattan. When she’d been hit by the cab, people stopped until it was clear the situation was in hand. Then no one gawked. They just kept walking. That’s what she did, following the wide, curving path into the park’s interior. Chattering children scrambled up and down a mound of rock surfacing from the park’s grass like a breaching whale left in place as part of the park’s rustic ambience; she sank onto a bench across from them and tried to catch her breath.
She was an idiot to think she’d be welcome at the baby shower. An idiot. Her throat tightened, but whether from humiliation, tears, or the early stages of a panic attack, she couldn’t be sure.