Chapter 11
She couldn’t go on like this. It had been almost four dayssince she and Tony had shared a bed, and Claire still didn’tknow what to say to him.
She talked to him every day. Settled questions about the building and defused tensions with their children and conspired to help Nadine catch poor Peaches unawares. Sheshared meals and plans and small, surprising silences thatshould have been much more comfortable. And then in theevening, when she would have sat at the kitchen table withhim or walked the yard, she disappeared up into her plain white room with its spindle poster bed and its watercolorsand its silence.
She felt suspended high above the ground, susceptible to any capricious breeze that might send her tumbling earthward. She felt as if she were balanced so precariously thatone wrong breath could spell disaster.
She felt spun around, turned upside down, inside out, andit was all Tony’s fault.
He knew about Sam. Nobody knew about Sam. Nobodywould have understood.
He understood.
He’d given her the sweetest gift a man had ever given her,there in that tiny out-of-the-way room with its borrowedbedspread and its half-finished decorations.
He’d forced open old doors better left closed, letting loosenot old memories or old ghosts, but old emotions. Sadnessand futility that had no place for a woman who was seeingher children grow healthy and happy. Terrible frustrationwhen all she had to deal with was a small-minded hospitaladministration and a smaller-minded county government. Useless anger and crushing melancholy. Unexpected rages and even more-unexpected flashes of delight.
She saw Jimmy all the time now, in old patients and quietmoments and the laughing face of her son. She heard whispers she hadn’t allowed to find her in years. She found herself trying to remember small things she’d forgotten.
And all because she’d asked Tony Riordan to make loveto her.
Because she’d let him close enough to tell her the truth.
She wanted to ask him more. She wanted him gone fromher life so she could have her precarious equilibrium back.And every night when she closed the door to her room andlocked it, she sat in the easy chair by her bed and battled theurge to run back to him.
To run back to his laughter. To his seawater eyes. To hisquiet understanding that undermined her resolve in the mostterrible ways.
She wanted to hide in his arms and she wanted to tearaway his composure.
So she sat alone every night and shared her wine with noone. And in the mornings, she went about her life as ifnothing had changed.
* * *
“What do you mean you’re withholding the permit?” shedemanded as politely as she could.
From the other end of her phone line came the same indifferent male voice she’d been battling for the two yearsshe’d been working on the inn. “Your contractor has to belicensed.”
“Heislicensed,” she insisted. “I brought all the documentation down to your office last week.”
She heard the shuffle of papers. “To this office? Are you sure? I don’t see it here anywhere.”
“Am I sure?” she retorted, flushing. “Pretty sure. It’sbeen a long time since I’ve mistaken your office for the pediatrician’s. On the other hand, you might just have mydaughter’s vaccination card down there. You want tolook?”
Silence.
Claire sucked in a breath. God, she never did that. Fortwo years, she’d been the soul of politeness to this man. Thisman who could withhold approval of her B and B simplybecause he was having a bad day.
She dropped her head into her hands and lost focus on thepile of paperwork that still waited her attention. “I apologize,” she said, her voice strained by the overwhelming urgeto tell this guy to eat his license. Backward. She was shaken by the urge to scream.
Johnny had asked again that morning. The deadline onROTC applications was closing in, and Claire hadn’t answered him. She hadn’t even explained. She’d been watching the news at the time.
“I’m not sure what you want me to do without the properdocumentation,” Mr. Ramsey told her in a way that betrayed just what was going to happen to the next set ofidentification papers she brought down to that office.
“Please check there,” Claire asked. “I handed them to awoman at the front desk. She said she’d take care of it forme.”
“Well, the papers aren’t here. I’m sorry.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Battled to breathe. Thoughtof what could happen if she didn’t get off the phone anymoment.
