Love made you vulnerable. It was impossible to love the way Joe loved and not open yourself up to pain. He was human, and he made mistakes, but he had the kindest heart she’d ever encountered and it was that kind heart that pushed him to risk everything to do what was right for her. Even with this absurd charade as Anthony Dowling, he’d proved himself a man who approached life head-on, unwilling to sit back and wait for happiness to knock at his front door.
Life didn’t work that way. Joe knew that, accepted it, and set out to knock on a few doors himself.
Maybe it was time she did the same thing.
#
“Joe!” The woman’s floated toward him from a great distance. “Wake up, Joe!”
He opened one eye. She was blond and lovely. For a second he thought he was trapped in the middle of Pillow Talk with Doris Day, then he saw the deep brown eyes with their flashes of gold, and he realized he’d fallen asleep in the back of the limo.
That wasn't part of his plan.
He sat up, feeling groggy and disoriented. “Are we at Orient Point already?” How the hell long had he been sleeping anyway?
“Halfway,” she said. “I thought you might want to stretch your legs.”
He dragged his fingers through his hair. The passenger door was open, and a chill wind blew through the car. Meg was half in shadow, half in waning sunlight. He couldn’t make out the expression on her face.
“Where are we?”
“Sunken Meadow State Park.” She turned and started walking away from the asphalt path he assumed led to the beach itself. Instead she picked her way across a bottle-strewn path that led into the thicket on the east side of the lot.
“I’m not big on nature walks,” he said as he caught up with her.
She kept her eyes on the path. “There’s a spot a few hundred yards up. It has a great view of the Sound I think you’ll like.”
Two hours ago she acted as if she’d rather transport toxic waste than take him out to the end of the Island. Now, despite everything, a thin ribbon of hope began to unfurl itself inside his heart.
Sharp blades of brown dune grass jabbed at his ankles; cold, wet sand slid into his shoes. The wind blew stronger as they reached the crest. But it all disappeared when he stood next to her and looked out at the grey and wild Long Island Sound one hundred feet below them.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and looked over at him. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Elemental,” he said. Like love.
She nodded, that secret smile he loved playing at the corners of her mouth. “I knew you’d understand.”
“How did you find it?”
“An old WPA guidebook that belonged to Elysse’s grandfather.” She shielded her eyes against the glare and pointed toward another cliff about fifty yards away from where they stood. “A pair of swans had a nest over there. I used to watch them every day as they swooped out over the Sound.”
“Used to?”
“They’re gone,” she said. “I haven’t seen them since I left for Lakeland House.”
He had been standing out there on the edge of forever long enough. “Meg.” Those deep brown eyes of hers met and held his gaze. “Why are we here?”
She sat down on an arrow-shaped boulder that rested near the precipice and he joined her.
“This is my favorite place on the Island,” she said slowly. “I thought it would help me say what I need to say.”
The elation he had felt shriveled and died. A gust of wind, salty and damp, sliced through his shirt and coat and turned his heart to ice. “Maybe I should go back to the car and grab us each a bottle of scotch.”
“I’ve made a decision about the People magazine offer. I’m going to take it.”
“That’s the best—“
“Just listen, Joe. I’m not doing it for you or for Renee or even for me exactly. Hunt is the real deal and this could be his big break.”
“It could be your big break too.”
She shook her head. “I’m not taking a credit on the photos.” She raised a hand to stop his protests. “My career,” she said softly. “My decision. Too many doors were opened for me last time. I want to open a few for myself.”
He managed to stay silent but it wasn’t easy.
“I stood in my sister’s shadow for too long, Joe. I don’t think I want to stand in yours.”
Pain, sharp and deep, tore at him. He stood up and jammed his hands in his coat pockets. He’d pushed too hard and this time he fell right over the edge. “The fatal flaw,” he said. “All classic heroes have one.”
Suddenly she was behind him, her slender arms wrapped around his waist. The scent of her perfume filled his head with the craziest fantasies, the wildest hopes.
“Perfect people are great in books,” she murmured, “but I don’t think I’d like to be married to one.”
His heart slammed against his rib cage. “What was that?”
She laughed and gently bit his earlobe. “A woman asks for your hand in marriage, and you demand a repeat performance? It was hard enough the first time.”
“Writers are moody bastards. Are you sure you want to be married to one?”
“Photographers happen to like challenges.”
Take it slow, he warned himself. Don’t push too hard. “No more limo driving?”
“Only for us.”
“When did you decide?”
“I guess I knew it that first day at Lakeland House, but I was afraid to admit it. You just happened to catch on faster than I did.”
“I push too hard.” He always had and probably always would. “I have this habit of trying to make things work out in real life the way they do in books.”
“I’ve noticed,” she said. “You do tend to dominate a situation, Alessio.”
“I can’t promise I’ll change,” he said, “but I’m working on it.”
“I’m not perfect either,” she said and he laughed. “A gentleman would have denied that.” She paused. “I’m stubborn,” she continued. “I’m temperamental.” She waited. “Sooner or later, you have to disagree with me, Joe, for the sake of our future together.”
“Sorry, kid, but you are imperfect and stubborn and temperamental.” He laughed at the expression of horror on her face. “But you’re also kind and generous and talented and the most beautiful woman—inside and out—that I’ve ever known.” He saw in her a strength few human beings possessed.
Again that seductive smile that tied his emotions in knots.
“Do you think you’ll be able to stand living with a struggling photographer?”
“It doesn’t change how I feel about you, Margarita. I want you to set the world on its ear, but if you decide to throw your camera into the ocean and drive a bus, I’m behind you all the way. Nothing can ever change the way I love you.” He wanted her to know she would never stand in anyone’s shadow again.
“Not even if I end up doing passport pictures all my life?”
“Your career,” he said. “Your decision.”
Her eyes darkened. He drew her close to him and was about to kiss her when they heard a commotion, then the rhythmic sound of wings strong and steady on the wind.
Two adult swans, immense and majestic, arced upward, then sailed out into the currents above the Long Island Sound. The pure untamed beauty of their bodies against the winter sky touched his romantic soul.
“That’s all there is to it, Margarita,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to take the leap and try to fly.”
She turned to him, her face wild and lovely, radiant with the courage that was the real source of her beauty. “I may never fly that high,” she said. “There are no guarantees.”
“There never are,” he said. “But it’s not how high you fly that matters, it’s that you fly at all.” It had taken him years, but he finally understood what Anna had tried so hard to teach him. Real life was the biggest challenge of all.
The swans soared higher, then disappeared from view, leaving just the me
mory of their beauty against the autumn sky.
Meg laughed, the sound pure and sweet against the rush of the wind. “Ah, Angelique,” she said, kissing his jaw, his ear, his mouth. “Another happy ending.”
Joe looked at the woman he intended to grow old beside, the woman in whose arms he wanted to die. He knew she would fly as high as she dreamed. “Are there any other kind?” he asked.
Epilogue
Peace and quiet.
For the first time in three days, Meg was surrounded by peace and quiet.
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she said as she sprawled on the big couch in the library. “I never thought I’d hear the sound of silence again.”
“Quiet,” Joe warned from across the room. “If Krissie wakes up, you won’t hear silence again for a long time.”
For three days, Lakeland House had been filled to capacity with friends and relatives, all of whom had come bearing gifts for the baptism of Kristen Anna Alessio. Elysse and Renee had shared the godparenting honors, and it had moved Meg tremendously to see their closest friends join together and pledge their responsibility for this new life. Patrick McCallem, beaming with an almost grandfatherly pride, had ceremoniously taken pictures of each and every one of them with the baby. Everyone important to Meg and Joe had been with them to share their joy in their baby daughter. Only Huntington Kendall, wildly successful now and currently living in Paris, had been unable to make the christening, and both she and Joe felt his absence sharply.
But now that all the excitement was over, four-week-old Krissie was sleeping blissfully in her father’s strong arms with only her tiny pink face visible above the yellow blanket that swaddled her.
The sight of Joe, her handsome masculine husband, settled in a rocking chair with that precious speck of humanity cradled against his chest moved Meg to quick, sweet tears.
“Postpartum blues?”
She shook her head. “The opposite. I’m happier than I ever dreamed possible.”
The baby stirred, and Joe’s large hand gently massaged her tiny back. “Are you sorry your parents didn’t stay for the party?”
It was an old pain but one Meg had learned to bear. “They came,” she said. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
Joe’s love during their five years of marriage had banished all the shadows from Meg’s life. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that Krissie’s existence would do the same for the Lindstroms, but Meg hoped her parents would, in time, allow some happiness back into their own lives in the person of their new granddaughter. Her sister, Kay, would always live in her heart, but Meg no longer felt the need to live in her shadow.
Marriage to Joe had brought with it a happiness that seemed to grow daily. The security she’d found with him had freed her to take on professional challenges she’d never dared before. While her decision to refuse credit for the People magazine spread on Hunt had baffled Joe, she knew she had made the right decision. Hunt had still garnered the attention he deserved, and seeing his career skyrocket had brought her tremendous pleasure. Meg then set out to see if she could make it on her own.
And she had.
While she wasn’t a household name yet, her reputation was growing, and her horizons were as limitless as her capacity to love and be loved in return.
Joe had taught her how to dream, and she had managed to make those dreams come true.
Joseph Alessio, however, had become a household name.
Fire’s Lady, the book Meg inspired, had topped the best-seller lists for sixteen weeks. A miniseries for HBO had garnered enough interest in the true identity of Angelique Moreau that Joe finally stepped out from behind his female pseudonym and into the limelight he deserved. His first nonfiction work was due on the bookshelves in two weeks, and his palms still grew sweaty each time he thought about it.
Thanks to Meg’s emotional support, he had finally unraveled his nineteen months in Vietnam and woven them into the rich and tangled tapestry of experiences of other veterans who had been less fortunate than he. Advance word said that In the Midnight Hour was the definitive work on the Vietnam experience. More importantly, it had helped Joe put his fears to rest.
The baby in his arms yawned. Her eyes opened. They were a startling deep green, the same eyes he saw in his mirror every morning when he shaved. Proof that his blood and the blood of all who had come before him ran through Kristen’s veins, giving him an immortality that his books would never achieve. The sense of family, of continuity he had sought in his work, was encompassed now in the woman who sat by his side and the child in his arms.
Kristin, however, was totally oblivious to such heavy thoughts. She knew about sleep and comfort. She also knew about food, and her hungry mouth turned in search of milk.
“Oh, no, little one.” He laughed as she took his pinky into her mouth and suckled. “This is your mother’s job.”
He stood up, and Meg settled herself down in the rocking chair and unbuttoned her blouse. She held out her hands for the baby, and Joe watched as the infant unerringly found the nipple and began loudly nursing.
Outside it was dark and cold, but inside, in that magical room where he and Meg had watched Casablanca one night long ago and fallen in love, his wife and daughter were bathed in the amber glow of the firelight, warmed by the glow of his love.
He knelt before Meg and rested one hand against her cheek, offering the other to Kristen, who grasped for his pinky with a plump fist. The best life had to offer were within the reach of his arms.
“Joe?” His wife’s voice was tender. “What are you thinking?”
He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, then smiled at the mother of his child. “I was just thinking it’s time we watched Casablanca again.”
“Ah, Joseph,” she said. “You’re still a hopeless romantic.”
She smiled at him. He smiled back. The baby found his pinky and held it tight.
Reality.
He loved it.
~~The End~~
Author's Note
Readers are everything.
Seeing your name in print is terrific. Good reviews put a smile on an author's face.
Royalties help keep the wolf from the door. But the absolute best thing about being a writer is being read.
Knowing that your words are making someone you're not even related to happy. Knowing that your story is helping to make a bad day better for a stranger who needed to escape for a few hours. Knowing that the imaginary friends you've spent the last few months with are out there in the world becoming just as real to a reader you'll never meet but know and love just the same.
See what I mean?
Readers are everything.
So this one is for the wonderful readers (and knitters) who have taken time over the last few years to let me know how much they enjoy my books.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And if you're new to my work, welcome. I hope you'll check out the other titles and excerpts below and let me know what you think. You can reach me at [email protected] or [email protected] any time.
Happy reading!
Barbara Bretton
A Soft Place to Fall
(A Shelter Rock Cove novel)
How It All Began
Late summer
"No good." Warren Bancroft pushed the sheaf of papers back across his desk. "The price is too high."
His attorney, a pig-headed Yankee named Stoney, allowed himself to register his shock. "Too high?" He glanced down at the number Warren had written across the top of the appraisal. "That's absurd! It isn't high enough."
"Not a penny more." Warren capped his fountain pen, and leaned back in his leather chair. "It would be highway robbery."
Stoney punched the appraisal with the tip of his forefinger. "The property alone appraised for more than this."
"The house is the size of a broom closet," Warren said, enjoying the confrontation. "That's as high as I'm going to go."
"You drive a har
d bargain."
"Damn right," Warren said. "That's why I'm rich."
Stoney took another look at the number scrawled on the top line. "You won't stay rich long if you keep this up."
"Call her, Stoney, and tell her I'm rejecting her offer. If she balks, go down another ten percent."
"I suppose you want to renovate the place while you're at it."
Warren's laughter filled the spacious office. "I've already taken care of that. I sent a crew over this morning to paint and spruce things up a bit."
"You'd be better off giving her the house. At least then we could take a tax deduction."
"You're a damn fine attorney," Warren said, "and I'm grateful for your advice. Now go do what I told you."
That was the trouble with the Ivy League types, he thought as Stoney left the room. They thought too much. They paid too much attention to the way things were and not enough to the way things ought to be. Hell, if he had done that all those years ago, he'd be another in a long line of fishermen claimed by the sea.
Not that he hadn't made his share of mistakes. His book was full of them, all laid out there in black and white. Of course, he hadn't let Annie see the good stuff yet but he would one of these days. She was only a kid of thirty-eight after all, and she needed some more seasoning.
He could tell her a thing or two about loneliness. He could tell her that there was nothing wrong with spreading her wings and seeing if she still remembered how to fly. He could tell her a lot of things but he wasn't sure she was ready to listen. She had been loyal and true to the people she loved and that loyalty had cost her dearly. He'd watched her grow from a fun-loving young girl with big dreams to a quiet, tired-looking woman with no dreams at all.
Lately he'd noticed a change in her, a restlessness that he understood in his bones. The time was right for new beginnings.
He reached for the dark blue folder marked "Sam." Who would have thought the wise-talking fifteen year old he'd met at the marina near the site of the World's Fair twenty years ago would one day be Warren's hero? He'd never told Sam Butler that because it would embarrass him but it was true. Warren was more than twice Sam's age but he knew he was only half the man. Life had dealt Sam a losing hand but somehow he'd managed to turn a pair of deuces into a full house. Nineteen years old and left with the care of five younger brothers and sisters – not too many men would have put their own lives on hold to see it through, but Sam had done exactly that.
The Edge of Forever Page 17