'Yes.'
'You know we have some money now. I'd like to git on back to Arizona and restart the business. Joe Lopez says they seem to miss me down there. It was a good business and a good life.'
'It was a good life.'
'I went a little crazy there. I put everybody through a lot. I wasn't very grown-up about my troubles. That's all in the past now. And what I learned was how important my family was. I want my family back. That's the only thing I want. No more adventures, no more screwing around.
That's all finished.'
'It wasn't your fault,' she said.
'It had nothing to do with you. It was all about me. How could I blame you for anything? You saved all--' 'Now, now,' he said.
'No need for that. I thought all this out. I just want the old life back. I want you to be my wife, I want my baby girl to be fine, I want to work with the horses and take care of y'all. That's the best life there is, the only life I've ever wanted. I get these bad moods.
Or I used to, I hope I'm over that. If I had some ghosts, they ain't walking out of the cemetery no more. So ... well, what do you say? Will you let me come back?'
'I already called the lawyer. He recalled the separation request.'
'That's great.'
'It'll be good,' she said.
'I think we should use some of that money and go on a nice vacation. We should close up the house here, the house outside of Boise, but then go to some warm island for two weeks. Then we can go back to Arizona. R&R.'
'God, does that sound like a plan to me,' he said with a smile.
'There's only one last little thing. Trig's mother.
She was very helpful and she told me that if I ever learned anything about the way her son died, I should tell her. Tell her the truth. I still feel that obligation. So in a couple of months or so, when all this dies down, when we're back, I may take a bit of time and head back there to Baltimore.'
'Do you want us to come with you?'
'Oh, it ain't worth it. I'll just fly in, rent a car, fly back.
It'll be over quicker 'n' you can believe. No sense putting no trouble to it or taking Nikki away from her riding.
Hell, I may drive instead of flying, save some money that way.'
He smiled. For just a second she thought there might be something in his eyes, some vagrant thought, some evidence of another idea, another agenda, but no, not a thing could be seen. They were depthless and gray and revealed nothing except the love he felt for her.
Little by little, life for the Swagger family reassembled itself toward some model of normality. Even the big news of a spectacular murder in Russia failed to make much of a stir. Bob just watched a little of it on CNN, saw the burning Jeep Cherokee and the dead man in the back, and when the hysterical analysts came on to explain it all, he changed channels.
Sally stayed until they moved back to Boise, and then Bob drove her to the airport.
'Once again,' she said at the gate, 'the great Bob Lee Swagger triumphs. You killed your enemies, you got your wife and family back. Can't keep a good man down.'
'Sally, I got 'em all fooled but you, don't I? You see clean through me.'
'Bob, seriously. Pay attention to them this time. I know it's easy to say, but you have to let the past go.
You're married, you have a wonderful, brave, strong wife and a beautiful little girl. That's your focus.'
'I know. It will be.'
'There's no more old business.'
'Is that a question or a statement?'
'Both. If there's one little thing left, let it go. It doesn't matter. It can't matter.'
'There's nothing left,' he said.
'You are one ornery sumbitch,' she said.
'I swear, I don't know what that woman sees in you.'
'Well, I don't neither. But she's pretty smart, so maybe she knows something you and I don't.'
Sally smiled, and then turned to leave, good friend and soldier to the very end. She winked at him, as if to say, 'You are hopeless.'
And he knew he was.
When the cast came off a little later, and Julie was back among the supple, the family flew to St. John, in the U.S.
Virgins for two glorious weeks. They rented a villa just outside Cruz Bay on the little island, and each morning took a taxi to the beautiful Trunk Bay beach, where they snorkeled and lay in the sand and watched the time pass ever so slowly as they turned browner and browner. They were a handsome family, the natural aristocrats of
