Leaning against the wall in the narrow hallway with his jacket off and his sleeves pushed up, a glass of water — water, not bourbon — in his hand.
The kitchen sounds came through the door. Catering staff, plates, someone giving instructions in rapid French. The party was a room away and might as well have been miles.
“Hiding?” I asked.
“Taking a moment.”
“Same thing.”
He held out his arm.
I stepped into the space he created, nestling against his side. His arm wrapped around me, pulling me closer, and I felt the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my dress. For a moment, we just stood there, breathing together. I listened to the kitchen sounds and the muffled party sounds and the house breathing around all of it, and I imagined what it would be like not to go back there.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Fine.” I considered. “Actually fine. Not St. Francisville fine.”
He made a sound that was almost a laugh.
“You?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. “Actually fine.”
He kissed the top of my head, and we stood there for a moment, like that. Just being. His thumb moved against my shoulder, slowly, back and forth. The cross under his shirt pressed against my arm where I leaned into him.
“Sister Ruth has decided we're a fait accompli,” I said.
“Sister Ruth decided that in August.” He took a drink from his glass.
“She told me we both look well.”
“We do.”
I tilted my head back to look at him. He looked down at me. This close his eyes were lighter than they had any right to be — the grey that had been wrong on his face from the beginning and had somehow become the thing I looked for first in any room.
I reached up and brushed my fingers against the stubble forming along his jawline. “Well, I'm glad we have Sister Ruth's blessing. Makes everythingsomuch easier.” Mind the sarcasm.
His smile was small but genuine, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other. He caught my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm, lingering there longer than necessary.
“Judah.”
“Mercy.”
“We have to go back out there.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moved.
“One more minute,” he said.
“One more minute,” I agreed.
It was probably two. And then two more.
Hargrove found Judah at eleven-fifteen, when the party was beginning to thin. I hadn’t seen him all evening but I had a feeling he had seenme.
The older men went first — the ones from out of town — the ones with the assessing eyes and the old-money colognesthat made me nauseous. Their cars with their drivers with their escorts — that I was trying very hard not to think of — were idling on the gravel.
