The blood quickly rose up to Karen’s face. Marie stood to the side laughing.
“Well, I sort of collect them.”
“You have more?”
“Oh, she has tons more, and leg irons too,” Marie said through laughter. “And a ball and chain.”
Karen lowered her head and drew a circle in the dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Okay, you can stop now.”
Barry gave Karen a suspicious once-over before setting the object back down in the trunk. Then he picked up the rifle, and the three of them headed inside where he said he’d write up a consignment receipt.
Turning to Marie, he asked, “Have you done any target shooting since you were here last?”
“No, but I wish there was someplace close to me where I could. I must admit, I really enjoyed it.”
“You’re welcome to come to my place anytime.” He ran his fingers through his hair and smiled just enough to make the corners of his mouth turn up. “You’ve got my number, right?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Here’s my card in case you don’t.” He put his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans in a cowboy stance. “Call me anytime, and I’ll take you to the next level.”
Marie wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“Of shooting.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Well, see ya ‘round.”
“What a nice guy,” Karen said once they were back in the car.
“Mm-hmm.”
“You’re going to call him, right?”
“I wish there was someplace in Atchison to target shoot. Do you know of any place?”
“Marie. He was so flirting with you. And he couldn’t have been any cuter if he had been holding a cocker spaniel puppy. Why not call him?”
“Karen, after Paul, I may never be interested in any man ever again.”
“C’mon. That’s just nonsense.”
“Who’s to say Barry doesn’t hold the same views as Paul…and just about everyone else out there? No, I may be done. And let’s not forget, I’m still married.” She wasn’t ready to admit it, but she did miss being with someone. “And besides, he has my number. If he was that interested, he would call me.”
“You don’t know men very well, do you? Most of the time they need to be led to where they want to be. Look, your marriage has long been over. Anyone can see that. You’re going to divorce him. And Barry is obviously smitten with you.”
“Smitten? You are so funny. Although he did ask me out.”
“Really? When?”
“After a few shooting lessons.”
“And you said no?”
“Yes, I said no. I told him then I was married.”
Karen shook her head. “Here’s what I would do.”
“Whatever you’re about to say, I’m not going there. If I’m going to try another relationship, which I’m not even sure I’ll ever do, I’m going to be divorced first.”
“Well, have it your way, but…”
“I know. I know. You’d do it differently.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “You bet I would.”
“So why don’t you make a play for him?”
“It’s you he’s interested in, Marie. He didn’t look twice at me.”
“And if he knew who my father was, he wouldn’t look twice at me either.”
“If you say so.”
They left for Alaska the following month, right after Michael Cavanaugh told Marie the divorce papers had been filed and Richard had been given ninety days to appeal.
They flew into Fairbanks and checked into the Wedgewood Resort the first night. Karen had been right. The new scenery was a welcomed change.
The next day they rode a train through Denali National Park, where they stayed two days. In Anchorage, they took a sightseeing tour and a floatplane ride over the glaciers. Twenty-three continuous hours of daylight took some getting used to.
Next, they went on a three-day cruise on the M.S. Noordstrom, where they met photographer Adam White. It was close to ten o’clock in the evening when Adam walked into the bar, scanned the crowded room, and asked Marie and Karen if he could join them at their table. He was tall, with dark curly hair and a welcoming smile. Marie thought he looked harmless enough and welcomed him to join them.
They sat there for hours as Adam told them fascinating stories about his adventures all over the world, photographing wildlife and nature. Contracted by National Geographic to photograph Alaskan wildlife, he shot during the day while the ship was in port, and in the evenings he mostly sat in the ship’s bar and drank beer. The three of them drank and talked into the wee hours of the morning.
Adam’s flirtatious demeanor made it obvious he was attracted to Marie. But his attention was the last thing she wanted or needed, so she tried to brush it off. Later in their room, Karen pushed it.
“Go for it! He’s a nice guy. He lives in Indianapolis. You’ll never have to see him again. So why not?”
“I have no interest, Karen. You go for him.”
“He’s not interested in me.”
“Well, I’m not interested in him.”
On the second day, Karen became seasick and had to stay in the cabin for the rest of the day. Marie stood on the deck waiting for the ship to port in Sitka, where she had planned to do some souvenir shopping, when Adam walked up behind her. “Where’s your friend?” he asked. He had more camera equipment hanging around his neck and off his shoulders than she thought one person could carry.
“Seasick,” she responded.
Adam’s face lit up. “Would you like to accompany me on a shoot?”
Not able to think of a polite way to decline fast enough, she said, “Okay.” They walked down the gangplank together. “What are you shooting?”
“Eagles.”
“You’re kidding.” She pictured them soaring high in the sky and wondered how he would ever get a good shot at them.
They were walking down the boardwalk in the harbor when Adam dropped his equipment in a patch of grass and readied his tripod and camera for a picture. Marie looked up into the sky, but she didn’t see anything. She turned back toward him and looked in disbelief at where he had focused his camera.
There, perched on a low branch of a tree not more than twenty feet from them, sat a bald eagle. She had no idea eagles were that big…or that majestic. It sat motionless on the branch, looking right at Adam, its blackish brown feathers gently moving in sync with the breeze coming in off the water.
Adam clicked off several shots and then took a step back to admire the bird without hindrance from the camera. “What do you think?” he asked without taking his eyes off the eagle.
“I think he’s amazing.”
“It’s a she.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’m not always right, but this one has an unusually deep beak, and she’s large. Females are generally larger than males.”
Marie studied its massive hooked yellow beak. “I’ll bet that beak could do some serious harm.”
“Just ask the salmon.”
“That’s what they eat?”
“Yeah, they’ll snatch a salmon out of the water, but they’ll also feed on carrion.”
Without warning, the eagle let out a high-pitched twitter and sprung from its perch, its piercing eyes focusing on something in the distance.
Marie’s glance moved toward the harbor where a half dozen other eagles were perched on pilings. “Just amazing.” Adam joined her gaze and pointed his camera on another large female just about to take off, clicking the shutter twenty times while the bird glided up into higher altitude.
“What a wingspan!”
“Well over six feet, I’d say.”
Adam took over two hundred photographs in all. Picture-worthy subjects were easy to find. At one point he let Marie look through the lens, putting his arm around her while he explained what she was seeing, what he wanted her to capture. She felt uncomfortable with his arm around her but found the birds so cap
tivating, she allowed it.
Marie found herself smiling as they walked back to the ship, and when he asked her if she wanted to join him for dinner, she agreed, knowing Karen would still be holed up in their cabin. They talked about his work during dinner and how he planned to spend the rest of his time in Alaska. He put his arm around her waist while they walked to the Eagle’s Nest for a nightcap. He ordered a bottle of wine.
Fascinated with his work, she leaned in with her elbows on the table and continued asking him questions. Sitting with his legs outstretched, ankles crossed, and his left hand supporting the side of his face, he responded to her questions, but only with short, abrupt answers. When his eyes kept wandering around the room, she changed the subject and asked him about his family.
He sat up straight, put his arms on the table, and leaned in toward her. “Look, honey. This has all the makings of a fuckin’ one-night stand, not a remake of Camelot, for God’s sake. Can we skip the small talk?”
Marie got up from the table. “No, but we can skip the one-night stand.”
She told Karen about the incident as soon as she returned to their cabin. “So this is why half the time I say I’m done with men. Who needs that?”
“Hey, everyone needs a little romp in the hay now and again.”
“Karen!”
Their trip ended in Vancouver. All in all it was a trip they would remember for a long time, and Adam White was a name Marie would throw up in Karen’s face for a long time too.
During the weeks following her Alaska trip, Marie allowed her work to save her from dwelling too much on whether Richard would appeal the divorce proceedings.
With few exceptions, Atchison local businesses were owned and managed by men, and more than a few eyebrows had been raised when she had opened her interior design business doors two years earlier. But not about to have her goals and aspirations diminished by that fact, and not afraid to go against the grain, Marie forged ahead as if she were one of them. And it worked.
Earlier that year, Marie had been elected president of a floundering group of local business owners she had joined when she had first opened her business. She eagerly accepted the challenge and grew the group from fifteen members to close to forty. Karen was voted secretary, and they renamed the group TABOO (The Atchison Business Owners Organization). When word about the group spread to neighboring towns, similar groups, all modeled after theirs, were formed.
Marie was honored when the American Institute of Decorators asked her to create a committee and forum that would award national prizes for best interior designs. After a few months of brainstorming, she and her committee members determined prizes for best-designed furniture, fabric, and wallpaper. The AID board liked their proposal, but when Marie suggested that the award-winning pieces be displayed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the AID president, who was originally from Chicago, suggested the Chicago Art Institute instead.
Since Marie was the committee member who lived closest to Chicago, she was asked to work with the Art Institute when the winning designs were to go on display, requiring her to make two trips to Chicago. The initial trip went well. The second trip was scheduled for the middle of September.
It was a pleasant walk from Chicago’s Union Station to the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Avenue where Marie was staying. The morning clouds were gradually shooed away by a gentle breeze, warming her face as she strolled down the avenue. She thought it odd not to see streetcars. When Marie had lived in Chicago, the Green Hornets, as they were called, ran on almost every downtown street. Now cars and buses had replaced them.
As she got closer to her hotel, Marie saw that a crowd of people had formed outside of it and was told Governor Adlai Stevenson was inside the hotel meeting with some Chicago bureaucrats and businessmen. Stevenson was someone many Chicagoans wanted to see run for president in 1952. Marie pushed her way through the crowd into the hotel lobby and to the front desk.
After getting settled in her room, she headed out for her meeting at the Art Institute. Afterward, near the end of her five-block walk back to her hotel, she saw him standing outside the main entrance. It was too late to turn back.
He wore a feral grin of triumph. “Hello, Marie. How was your meeting?”
“What are you doing here, Richard?”
“I live here. Remember?”
She tried to get past him, but he took a step sideways to block her. “Can we stop inside for a drink?” he asked.
She looked him in the eye and held her head high. “I see no purpose in that.”
His face was calm, including his eyes. “You don’t think you at least owe me that?” he asked in a soft voice.
Marie took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay.” Richard led her across the lobby to a sitting area farthest from the groups of people still wanting to get a glimpse of the governor.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m fine, and you?”
“Not so fine. As you know, I was served with divorce papers.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I want you to withdraw it.” His gaze didn’t leave her face.
“Why, Richard? We’ll never have a life together again. You know that.”
“You know something? I do know that. I know that now. But that’s not why I’m asking you to withdraw it.”
“Why then?”
“I’m doing it for you. My felony conviction was expunged from my record, and so your grounds for divorce won’t hold any water in court.”
Her heart sank.
“So why let it go through the court process when it will obviously be denied?”
“How did you get that expunged?”
Richard raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry. Stupid question.” She peered deep into his eyes. “So now what?”
“My lawyer tells me I have all sorts of grounds to divorce you.”
Marie gulped and hoped he didn’t notice. She held her breath waiting for him to continue.
“And while this still isn’t what I want, I’m willing to file…to make things easy for you.”
“Why would you do that if it isn’t what you want?”
He gave her a weak smile. “When you took that little road trip to South Carolina with your father, I knew I had lost you for good. I know you too well, sweetheart, and while I can’t say I understand it, I can’t compete with that. So…I may as well let you off the hook, let you go.” He leaned in closer. “And believe me when I tell you, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because, despite whatever you think of me, whatever you think you know about me, I have never loved anyone like I loved you, and I don’t think I ever will.”
Richard stood up and turned away from her. He took one step and then hesitated. After a brief moment, he continued his stride through the lobby and out the front door of the hotel.
Marie remained in her chair, staring straight ahead, trying to remain calm, and trying not to cry. It almost didn’t matter that he knew about the trip with her father, that he knew she was staying at the Blackstone right now, and that she was in town for a meeting. What she couldn’t get over was what Richard had said about not being able to compete with Jonathan.
It didn’t sink in at first. Here was a man who had been telling her for three years in one way or another that he still loved her and wanted her to come home. And now, because she took a trip with her father to his hometown, the town where he grew up, the town where he became the man he was today, Richard gives up.
He said he knew her too well. Maybe he knew her better than she knew herself.
CHAPTER 20
Compassion
Nearing the end of an early morning ride on J.B. one balmy fall day, Marie spotted Ted and several of the ranch hands gathered near one of the stables. Ted walked in front of Marie’s horse, forcing her to stop. “Don’t go in there just yet.”
“How come?”
“One of our mares just had a stillborn birth in the stall next to J.B.’s.
” He took the reins from Marie and led her to the next barn. “We can put him in here until things settle down. Mama’s pretty upset and won’t let anyone near her dead colt.”
She dismounted and walked next to Ted as he led J.B. to the last stall. Marie reached for the brush hanging on the nail outside the stall, but before she could start rubbing the horse down, Ted took the brush from her hand. “I’ll ask one of the hands to do that. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”
Over coffee, Marie found out Ted had been married—twice. His first wife had run off with their next door neighbor, and his second wife had died in a riding accident. That had been two years ago.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. How awful that must have been for you.”
“It was. I was the one who found her. I don’t know what caused that horse to be so aggressive. And he wasn’t any crow-bait horse. He’d never shown any sign of bad behavior before, nor since. Just goes to show you how unpredictable animals are. Say, would you like to have dinner with me sometime?”
She liked his smile. “Only if you allow me to tell you about myself. And then, if you want to back out, I’ll understand.” She told him about her father and Richard.
“Your father sounds like someone I’d like to get to know, but that husband of yours, well, that’s a different story.”
“So who my father is doesn’t bother you? I’ll understand if you want to back out. Really.”
“I ain’t backing out.” He laughed. “My great-grandfather was a Cherokee Indian. Does that bother you?”
“No. Not in the least.”
The next evening, while they sipped wine on Marie’s porch, Marie told Karen about her talk with Ted.
Karen’s face lit up. “He’s so handsome, in a rugged sort of way. Is he single?”
“Of course he’s single. I wouldn’t go out with him if he wasn’t.”
Karen gave her a peculiar look and then smiled. “Well, you’re not.”
“Right. Well, you got me there.”
“Any word on the divorce?”
“Not yet. I guess Richard hasn’t filed yet.”
Karen smiled. “I can just see the two of you riding off into the sunset together…”
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