“We can give you something to help you sleep,” the psychiatrist had told him.
Drugs. But not something that could take away the nightmares. He glanced over at the bed, listening to the sound of her breathing.
“After a while it's not the first thing you remember, or the second,” Cate once told him, understanding far better than most people, including the psychiatrists and therapists.
“Then you realize that other things matter more.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY
She was alone.
That was the first thing she was aware of. Then the next, as she remembered other things.
She tried to block everything out, an arm flung across her forehead. But it was there, pushing out of the box, images, memories from the day before, and a sound in the room—the sob that climbed out of her throat. The tears followed.
Hard truths.
She'd never been one to run away from them. There were times there was no running away, because when you were alone, they were still there impossible to escape, waiting for you in something that someone said, in something you saw, in the middle of the night.
She had hoped that Marcus might be able to provide some insight into all of it. He was an expert on European history, he'd made a career of it after stepping away from his stint as a field reporter. And Cate had spoken to him several times over the past month leading up to the accident. She might have shared something with him that she'd discovered—something that might make sense out of all of this. As it was, they'd never know what she might have told him.
The hard truth now was that they were at a dead end. She didn't know where any of this led or what the next step was. Maybe James was right, they should just go to the French authorities and tell them everything.
Her throat tightened. She felt that same helplessness that she'd felt when her brother died, the same anger that she should have been able to do something; at the same time, deep down inside, there was nothing she could have done. Mark had made his own choices and decisions. The problem was, she had to find a way to live with those choices and decisions.
She pushed back the comforter and headed for the bathroom.
The water beat down, easing sore muscles from the day before, filling the small bathroom with steam, and probably violating some environmental laws about how much water she used.
Screw it. She'd take her chances with the water authorities, if there was such a thing in the French countryside. When she stepped out of the shower a half-hour later, she felt almost human again. Almost.
The room was quiet as she wrapped a towel around herself and stepped out of the bathroom.
Choices.
So much for the 'morning after,' that conversation, and the part where one of them felt the need to say ‘This was a mistake.’
She took a deep breath and pushed it into the box.
“My wife is French, you know,” the innkeeper explained, in that clipped English accent.
“Her family has been here for generations,” he said with a smile, when he showed her the closet that opened up underthe stairs that contained a small workstation complete with computer and printer, for the tech-connected traveler that couldn't stand to be disconnected from the digital world.
“She's quite good, you know. She put together the website for the inn, and she orders almost everything online, from local merchants, of course,” he added with a smile.
The tour group had left earlier, on their way to one of those well-known local battlefields, and James still hadn't returned. She needed that now, needed the space.
“American?” he asked as she glanced past him to the wide-screen on the wall of the main room, and the mid-morning broadcast from Paris. Video of the explosion the day before played across the screen.
“Yes,” she replied, pulling her attention away as the broadcast continued with other news of the day.
“New York.”
“Ah, we've had several groups through this season from the U.S. with the anniversary of the war and all, although business has slowed somewhat with the winter season, the weather you know,” he commented as he provided the login for the computer at the workstation.
“And your husband?”
