life was about to change. It was, just not the way either of them in their wildest feat of clairvoyance or naked intelligence could possibly imagine.
Yes he was in love with her. He knows she was in love with him too, which is why he tried so hard with the old lady and how his heart broke afterward.
The next day she was gone. ‘Up north,’ he was told by the smug old woman when he went to ask for Lucy at her house. Mrs Archambault filled the doorway with her tidy permanent wave and perfect choker pearls and fixed glare. Why are you here?
‘She’s on a trip,’ she told him in that cold, flat tone she kept for people who came to cut her grass or repair broken windows. That sneer: Yard men.
‘I need to see her.’ He meant, I need her.
Then she looked at him and said, in a voice that tore him in half and made tears choke Walker Pike, who never cries, ‘Did you do that to her? Did you?’
‘No,’ he shouted. He was still shouting when she slammed the door on him. ‘Dear God, no!’
Like she would believe anything he said.
Well, fuck her. They were both home over Labor Day Weekend, Lucy with all her bruises healed and only a small white scar on the lip because while Walker struggled with Kalen, the bulky drunk struck out and clipped his captive again with the back of his hand, tearing it with his ring. Now she was home.
His brother Wade was the social one so he knew who was in town, and when. Walker phoned the house. She muttered, afraid of being overheard. Colluding. His heart sank. The grandmother would never approve of him. That night Lucy came out to meet him on the waterfront across the street from the Fort Jude Club. The old woman thought she was inside, at the big party. They rode out to Land’s End; it was something they had to do.
They parked near the spot. They got out. They had to, given her pain and his determination to save her again and again. Without discussing it, they walked out on the strand where the mangroves were thick, studying the sand until they found the place. They didn’t do anything; they just stood, looking. For a long time they were silent. Then she turned and started back to the car.
He touched her cheek. It was one of those things.
Immediate and sure. No transaction needed. It fell into his hands like a gift.
They loved each other: she loved him. She was starting Radcliffe. Perfect.
In Cambridge they were equals, close and getting closer in love. They saw each other some nights and every weekend; they saw each other whenever they could. Walker thought they could be together on Thanksgiving weekend in Fort Jude, but Lucy went back to her grandmother’s and he went home to Pierce Point.
‘I’m so sorry. Grandmother.’ Her face told him the rest.
He cried, ‘If I could only talk to her!’
‘Not yet,’ Lucy warned and she was begging. ‘Just not yet.’ It was Wednesday of the long weekend. She touched his cheek. ‘Pick me up at the club. She’s running the Thanksgiving dance – Friday night? She’ll be too busy to notice.’ She saw his face. ‘Please, hiding is only for a little while. She just doesn’t need to know.’
His heart staggered. ‘So nothing has changed.’
‘Not yet.’ She touched his lips, sealing them. ‘Not yet.’
He picked her up outside the club just the way he had on Labor Day weekend. The ballroom windows were ablaze. Another big party that she could leave without being noticed. They drove to the beach; it was what they did. She’d booked a room. They made love for the first time.
Walker thought: Now. Everything will be different.
Coming in on the causeway, she had him take the Fourth Street exit. Walker said, ‘Why?’
‘Please, just drop me in Pine Vista?’
‘Why, Lucy? Why should I do that?’
Her face went eight ways to Sunday. Her voice was so low that he could barely hear. ‘I told her to pick me up at Bobby Chaplin’s house. She thinks he’s OK because his great-grandfather started the Fort Jude Club. It’s crazy, but I had to tell her something.’
Like a fool, he pressed for reasons. The more she tried to explain, the worse he felt and the more he pressed.
Finally Lucy pushed him away with both hands, crying, ‘I can’t let her find out about you and me!’
The bitch found out anyway. Somebody