Keeper of the Bride

window, peering out at the darkness. He’d hung no curtains; here in the woods, he’d never felt the need for them. But now he realized just how open and vulnerable she was. And that worried him — more than he cared to admit.

He said, “I’d feel better if you came away from those windows.”

She turned, a startled look in her eyes. “You don’t think someone could have followed us?”

“No. But I’d like you to stay away from the windows all the same.”

Shuddering, she moved to the couch and sat down. She’d already made the couch into a bed, and only now did he realize how tattered the blanket was. Tattered furniture, tattered linens. Those were details that had never bothered him before. So many things about his life as a bachelor had not bothered him, simply because he’d never stopped to think how much better, sweeter, his life could be. Only now, as he saw Nina sitting on his couch, did it occur to him how stark the room was. It was only the presence of this woman that gave it any life. Any warmth.

Too soon, she’d be gone again.

The sooner the better, he told himself. Before she grew on him. Before she slipped too deeply into his life.

He paced over to the fireplace, paced back toward the kitchen door, his feet restless, his instincts telling him to say something.

“You must be hungry,” he said.

She shook her head. “I can’t think about food. I can’t think about anything except…”

“Robert?”

She lowered her head and didn’t answer. Was she crying again? She had a right to. But she just sat very still and silent, as though struggling to hold her emotions in check.

He sat down in the chair across from her. “Tell me about Robert,” he prompted. “Tell me everything you know about him.”

She took a shaky breath, then said softly, “I don’t know what to say. We lived together a year. And now I feel as if I never knew him at all.”

“You met at work?”

She nodded. “The Emergency Room. Evening shift. I’d been working there for three years. Then Robert joined the ER staff. He was a good doctor. One of the best I’d ever worked with. And he was so fun to talk to. He’d traveled everywhere, done everything. I remember how surprised I was to learn he wasn’t married.”

“Never?”

“Never. He told me he was holding out for the best. That he just hadn’t found the woman he wanted to spend his life with.”

“At forty-one, he must’ve been more than a little picky.”

Her glance held a trace of amusement. “You’re not married, Detective. Does that make you more than a little picky?”

“Guilty as charged. But then, I haven’t really been looking.”

“Not interested?”

“Not enough time for romance. It’s the nature of the job.”

She gave a sigh. “No, it’s the nature of the beast. Men don’t really want to be married.”

“Did I say that?”

“It’s something I’ve finally figured out after years of spinsterhood.”

“We’re all rats, that kind of thing? Let’s get back to one specific rat. Robert. You were telling me you two met in the ER. Was it love at first sight?”

She leaned back, and he could clearly see the remembered pain on her face. “No. No, it wasn’t. At least, not for me. I thought he was attractive, of course.”

Of course, thought Sam with an undeniable twinge of cynicism.

“But when he asked me out, that first time, I didn’t really think it would go anywhere. It wasn’t until I introduced him to my mother that I began to realize what a catch he was. Mom was thrilled with Robert. All these years, I’d been dating guys she considered losers. And here I show up with a doctor. It was more than she’d ever expected of me, and she was already hearing wedding bells.”

“What about your father?”

“I think he was just plain relieved I was dating someone who wouldn’t marry me for his money. That’s always been Dad’s preoccupation. His money. And his wives. Or rather, whichever wife he happens to be married to at the time.”

Sam shook his head. “After what you’ve seen of your parents’ marriages, I’m surprised you wanted to take the plunge at all.”

“But that’s exactly why I did want to be married!” She looked at him. “To make it work. I never had that stability in my family. My parents were divorced when I was eight, and after that it was a steady parade of stepmothers and mother’s boyfriends. I didn’t want to live my own life that way.” Sighing, she looked down at her ringless left hand. “Now I wonder if it’s just another urban myth. A stable marriage.”

“My parents had one. A good one.”

“Had?”

“Before my dad died. He was a cop, in Boston. Didn’t make it to his twentieth year on the force.” Now Sam was the one who wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing, instead, at some distant point in the room, avoiding her look of sympathy. He didn’t feel he particularly needed her sympathy. One’s parents died, and one went on with life. There was no other choice.

“After my dad died, Mom and I moved to Portland,” he continued. “She wanted a safer town. A town where she wouldn’t have to worry about her kid being shot on the street.” He gave a rueful smile. “She wasn’t too happy when I became a cop.”

“Why did you become a cop?”

“I guess it was in the genes. Why did you become a nurse?”

“It was definitely not in the genes.” She sat back, thinking it over for a moment. “I guess I wanted that one-on-one sense of helping someone. I like the contact. The touching. That was important to me, that it be hands-on. Not some vague idea of service to humanity.” She gave a wry smile.

“You said your mother didn’t want you to be a cop. Well, my mother wasn’t too happy about my career choice, either.”

“What does she have against nursing?”

“Nothing. Just that it’s not an appropriate profession for her daughter. She thinks of it as manual labor, something other women do. I was expected to marry well, entertain with flair, and help humanity by hosting benefits. That’s why she was so happy about my engagement. She thought I was finally on the right track. She was actually…proud of me for the first time.”

“That’s not why you wanted to marry Robert, was it? To please your mother?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at him with genuine puzzlement. “I don’t know anymore.”

“What about love? You must have loved him.”

“How can I be sure of anything? I’ve just found out he was seeing someone else. And now it seems as if I were caught up in some fantasy. In love with a man I made up.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

“It’s important you tell me everything you know. That you consider all the possible reasons someone wanted him dead. A man doesn’t just walk up to a stranger and shoot him in the head. The killer had a reason.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was crazy. Or high on drugs. Robert could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You don’t really believe that. Do you?”

She paused. Then, softly, she said, “No, I guess I don’t.”

He watched her for a moment, thinking how very vulnerable she looked. Had he been any other man, he would be taking her in his arms, offering her comfort and warmth.

Suddenly he felt disgusted with himself. This was the wrong time to be pressing for answers, the wrong time to be doing the cop act. Yet that act was the only thing that kept him comfortably at a distance. It protected