He watched as she slathered on cream, as the scent of it mixed with the scent of her soap. “We’ll manage it all.”
“Winters fly by now that I’ve got the business. A lot more to do over the winter than people might think. And here we are, into another spring. I can hardly believe it’s . . .”
Her eyebrows drew together, with that faint vertical line between them. Falling silent, she carefully replaced the top on her cream.
“Just hit you, didn’t it?” he asked.
“What would that be?”
“The two of us, right now.” He stayed where he was as she moved by him into the bedroom, as she opened a drawer for fresh clothes. “End of the workday, talking over the shower. It’s all very married, isn’t it?”
She slipped on cropped gray sweats, tugged a T-shirt over her head. “How do you feel about that?”
“Not entirely sure. A little nervous around the edges, I guess. Amazingly calm at the center. What about you?”
She rubbed the towel over her hair as she studied his face. “Getting married again wasn’t just not on my radar, but top of my list of things to avoid. Such as poisonous snakes, frogs dropping out of the sky, ebola viruses, and such.”
He smiled, leaned on the doorjamb. “I heard past tense.”
“You have good ears. I fell in love once, very young. And when I fell in love, I married. It was very good, and I’ll love John Ashby all of my life. I’ll see him in the sons we made together, and know I wouldn’t have them if we hadn’t loved the way we did.”
“People who can and have loved like that are fortunate.”
“Yes, we are. At one time I was lonely. My boys were going their own way, and the house just seemed so empty, so quiet. I was sad, under the pride of seeing the young men I’d help create, I was so damn sad.”
She walked back into the bathroom to hang the damp towel, then opened her daily moisturizer to smooth it over her face.
“I needed something to take that away, or thought I did. I wanted someone to share the rest of my life with. I picked someone who, on the surface, seemed right. That mistake cost me a great deal. Emotionally and financially.”
“And because of that, you’ll be very careful about another marriage.”
“I will. But I’m in love with you, Mitchell.” She saw the emotion rush into his eyes, and what a thrill it was to see it, to know it was there because of her.
She saw him start to step forward. And stop himself, because he knew she wanted him to wait. Another thrill, she thought, to be so well understood.
“I never expected to love again, not with the whole of my heart. That was the mistake I made with Bryce, you see. The basic mistake, in marrying someone I didn’t love with the whole of my heart. Still, marriage is an enormous step. I hope you won’t mind if I let you know when and if I’m ready to take it.”
“I can work with that, because I love you, Rosalind. Mistakes I made before hurt people I loved. I won’t make them again.”
She walked to him. “We’re bound to make new ones.”
He leaned down, brushed his lips over hers. “That’ll be all right.”
“Yes, I think it might be all right. Why don’t we go downstairs, see what David’s got cooked up? Then you can tell me about your day instead of listening to me carry on about mine.”
AS IT WASlate, the children had already eaten and their parents were busy with bedtime rituals.
“Sometimes you can forget this house is full of people.” Roz dug into spaghetti and meatballs. “Other times it’s like being at the monkey house at the zoo.”
“And you like it both ways.”
“I do. I’m a contradictory soul. I need my solitude or I get mean. I get too much solitude, I get broody. I’m a pain in the ass to live with, you may want to factor that into the equation.”
“I already have.”
She paused, fork halfway to her mouth, then set it down as a long, rolling laugh spilled out of her. “Serves me right.”
“I’m messy, often careless with details that don’t interest me at that particular moment—and I don’t have any intention of reforming. You can factor those in.”
“Done. Now what did you want to talk over with me?”
“I never seem to run out of things I want to talk over with you.”
“Men, in the first few weeks of love, talk more than they do or will for the following twenty years.”
“See?” He gestured with his fork, then wound pasta around it. “Another advantage for finding each other a little later in life. We both know how it works. But what I wanted to discuss, primarily, was Clarise Harper.”
“You’re going to spoil my appetite, bringing her name up, and I do love meatballs and spaghetti.”
“I paid another call on her this morning while, I assume, you were off digging gardens.”
“Would you say you visited the third or fourth level of Hell?”
“Not that bad. She likes me, to a point. Finds me interesting, at least, and I’d say is amusing herself by feeding me what she likes and holding back what she doesn’t want me to know.”
He shoveled in spaghetti, then broke a hunk of garlic bread in half to split with her. “I have a tape, if you’re interested. She told an entertaining story, she claimed her mother told her, about your grandfather when he was a boy—going off to sleep in a closet with a puppy he’d taken from a litter in the stables. He’d wanted it for a pet, and his mother had vetoed. No dogs in the house sort of thing. So he’d hidden it in his room for a week or so, keeping it in his closet, pilfering food out of the kitchen.”
“How old was he?”
“About ten, she thinks. At least from what her mother told her. He was found out when he crawled into the closet with it, and fell asleep. Nobody could find him, turned the house upside down. Then one of the servants heard this whimpering and found the two of them in the back of his bedroom closet.”
“Did he get to keep the dog?”
“He did. His father overruled his mother and let him keep it, though it was a mutt and apparently never learned any manners. He had it nearly eighteen years, so she remembers it herself, vaguely. He buried it behind the stables, put a little tree over the grave.”
“Spot. My grandmother showed me the grave. There’s even a little marker. She said he’d buried his beloved dog there, but must not have known the story about how he acquired it. She’d have told me.”
“My impression is Clarise told me to illustrate that her mother’s little brother was spoiled by his father.”
“She would,” Roz replied.
“I learned something else. Jane has every other Wednesday off. Or Wednesday afternoons. She likes to go to Davis-Kidd, have lunch in their cafe, then browse the stacks.”
“Is that so?”
“Anyone who wanted to talk to her privately could run into her there. Tomorrow, in fact, as it’s her Wednesday afternoon off.”
“I haven’t made time, recently, to go to the bookstore.”
“Then I’d say you’re due.”
WITHOUTMITCH’S DESCRIPTION, Roz doubted she’d have recognized Jane Paulson. She saw the young woman—mouse-colored hair, drab clothes, solemn expression—come into the cafe and go straight to the counter.
She ordered quickly, like someone whose habits varied little, then took a table in a corner. She pulled a paperback book out of her purse.
Roz waited sixty seconds, then wandered over.
“Jane? Jane Paulson?” She said it brightly, with just a hint of puzzlement, and watched Jane jolt before her gaze flew up. “Well, isn’t this something?”
Without waiting for an invitation, Roz took the second chair at the table. “It’s been . . . well, I can’t remember how long. It’s Cousin Rosalind. Rosalind Harper.”
“Yes, I . . . I know. Hello.”
“Hello right back.” Roz gave her hand a pat, then sat back to sip at her coffee. “How are you, how long are you
