never make it across town in fifteen minutes."
"But—" She raised her hand to stop him. The front door closed. She crossed the entry and opened the doors, then stepped outside, intending to tell him not to do her any more favors.
He stood there all tall and gallant, holding the door open to a shiny black cab. She looked from him to the carriage driver, then decided to avoid an argument and went ahead and got inside.
She leaned toward the window to the driver's seat. "How much is it to go to—"
Conn leaned inside the door. "Put your purse away." His loud deep voice blocked out hers.
"Mr. Donoughue—"
Conn handed the driver a gold coin. "Get the lady to United Methodist Church in fifteen minutes."
"You got it!" the cabdriver said, and he snapped the whip before Eleanor could protest.
She sat there inside the warm, roomy coach, half annoyed and half grateful. Something made her turn and look out the oval window in the back.
Conn Donoughue began to shrink, smaller and smaller the farther away they went, until he was only a black dot no bigger than her thumbnail.
She turned around, then leaned back and closed her eyes, telling herself that he was just a dream, one that with time would finally fade away.
It was cold when she left the wedding reception, a bouquet of Christmas lilies held loosely in her hand. It was so very cold that the twilight had turned a frozen blue. Above the sidewalks, the telephone lines crackled in the cold.
The air was different; it seemed to be alive. Her breathing was labored, and she could have sworn there was ice inside her chest. She kept walking, listening to the crunch of her boots in the icy snow. She stopped for a second and looked down at the bridal bouquet. She didn't coddle to superstitions. She'd even tried to give the flowers away, but everyone laughed at her.
She tossed the bouquet in a dumpster, then wrapped her arms around herself and just stood there for a long time. She would not be marrying anyone. She had lost her opportunity.
For the first time tonight, she understood what Conn had meant. Sally was twenty, youthful and pretty and full of life. The man she married was forty. But no one could have doubted their love. It was on their faces every time they looked at each other.
No one seemed appalled at the age difference. Old men frequently married younger women. So why did it bother her so that Conn was younger? She looked deep inside herself and knew that she was scared. It was her. Not anyone else. She had lived without love for so long that she had made herself into what she thought she was—an old maid.
But she hadn't been old with Conn. She'd felt alive and young and so very happy. What a foolish woman she was.
She tilted her face upward and took in the night sky, which was filled with so many stars it seemed impossible for the streets to be dark. She wondered what it was like out where the stars sparkled and the moon glowed silver or orange.
If she were the moon, would she be able to watch the world below? Could she spend her life watching everyone else live and love? If she went somewhere else, would she feel as she felt here—a loneliness that made life sometimes seem almost insurmountable?
It would be so marvelous to just go soaring off into the sky until you were nothing but a tiny bright dot. Away. Far far away from everything. Far away from Conn Donoughue.
By the time she had walked another cold and icy block she was crying, sobbing hard painful tears that froze on her cheeks and chin and made her nose feel like an icicle. And when she got home and climbed up those stairs, she stopped on the third floor, wishing for something that could never be.
Half an hour later she climbed into her cold bed. What had she done? She had given up what she wanted. She gave up her future. It seemed as if she had lived her whole life between cold sheets and dreams. She wanted so badly to take back the years. She wanted to take back the moment she looked into Conn's strong face and said no. She wanted the chance to live part of her life over again. The part she had wasted, and the part she had thrown away.
Chapter 8
Four days before Christmas, Eleanor was in