by Susan Wiggs
“Yeah. For the time being.” A troubled crease appeared on his brow.
“The lack of funds is a big problem, isn’t it?” She watched the girl and her mother at the bus stop, their faces glowing with excitement. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I know. Better PR, bigger donations. But we can’t afford better PR.”
“You can if it’s free.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? When are you going to have time for that?”
She smiled, suddenly sure of herself, more sure than she’d ever been in her life. “From now on, I’m going to make time. My firm’s going to open a nonprofit PR division and take on some pro bono clients.”
He grinned and put his arm around her. “It’s good to be the boss.”
As she walked at his side, she felt lighter than air. She felt as though she’d been roused from a long sleep of numbness and was finally waking up to life. This was Tony’s world, this colorful, noisy, imperfect place, and it made more sense to her than her own. He was a part of this neighborhood, this tree-lined street filled with families and laughter.
There was a quality of belonging here, and as she walked through the winter morning with him, it encompassed her like a vast embrace. She heard herself singing along with the carolers and laughing at a family playing with a frisky new puppy with a bow around its neck. Everything warm and real bubbled up inside her and spilled over and, at last, after the long, strange night, she knew what it was. And it was so simple, so very simple. It was happiness, pure and unpretentious and more real than the fresh snow squeaking beneath her feet.
“‘I am as merry as a schoolboy’,” she said with a laugh, quoting half-remembered lines from Dickens. “‘As giddy as a drunken man!’”
Tony laughed with her and pulled her close. “Good thing you smell better.”
The sweet yearning she had felt for him all those years ago had never gone away. It had only grown, nurtured in the dark, secret places of her heart. The things that truly mattered had been buried under the smothering press of ambition and expectation and all the other business that had taken over her life when she wasn’t paying attention. But she was free now, and she could tell her joy shone in her face when she looked up at him, because she could see an answering joy reflected in his eyes.
They didn’t speak as they walked the next few blocks to the classic Prospect Park West townhouse where he’d grown up. Finally, as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the handsome, blocky building, she couldn’t stay silent any longer. “You wouldn’t believe how nervous I am.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her, seemingly oblivious to the pedestrians who had to go around them. “Hey, do you know how long my family’s been waiting for me to bring home the love of my life?”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She had never, ever felt this way before, but somehow she recognized the emotion. It was the feeling of a dream coming to life. Her dream. The time stretching out before her was her own. It was up to her to decide how to spend it. She could forge ahead, fueled by ambition, toward the shadowy fate she’d glimpsed in Bobbi’s desperate eyes as she’d hovered on the edge of the bridge. Or she could choose a different path to a new and unexpected destination.
“About as long,” she said, “as I’ve been waiting to meet them.”
Tony’s smile turned slightly shy. “Before we go in, I need to give you something.”
She frowned. “What?”
He rummaged in his pocket. “I meant to give it to you last night.”
Her heart quickened. “So why don’t you give it to me now?”
Right in the middle of the snowy sidewalk, he went down on one knee and handed her a small box. “Elaine St. James, this means more than you think it means.” Passersby were trying to be polite and not stare but they did anyway, grinning and whispering and nudging each other. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this moment, the two of them, the warmth flowing between them.
Her hands trembled as she opened the box. She gasped, taking out a key ring with a silver skate. “How on earth did you get this?”
“Don’t ask,” he said with a grin. “It’s magic.”
She stared at him and her heart started to sing every carol and love song she’d ever heard.
“One of these days,” he promised her, “this is going to be a different kind of ring,” he added, getting to his feet. “And you’re going to say yes, Elaine. Because, well, I love you,” he said. “I always have.”
A warm wash of tears fell down her cheeks, and a hush of reverence gripped her. “I know,” she whispered. “I know that. Tony, I love you. I’ll love you forever.”
She clasped the silver skate in her hand, knowing the real gift was something she hadn’t expected and maybe didn’t even deserve—a chance to change her life.
She buried her face against his shoulder and inhaled. A thousand hopes and dreams gave birth to a thousand more, and all the cares in the world slipped away. I promise, she thought. I promise I won’t blow it this time.
They stood like that for a long time, with Christmas exploding all around them, and finally Tony pulled away and walked up to the blocky brownstone.
He opened the door to a big, loud, cluttered kitchen that smelled of baking bread and rang with laughter and conversation. Everyone turned to them when they stepped inside.
“This is Elaine,” Tony said, drawing her into the room with him. “We’re home.”
Amid the lush abundance of sun-drenched Bella Vista, beautiful stories of family and friendship are woven like a spell around us.
“A layered, powerful story of love, loss, hope and redemption.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review on The Apple Orchard
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eISBN-13: 978-1-4603-4908-3
The St. James Affair
Copyright © 2003 by Susan Wiggs
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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