At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,81

"A vet."

"You did it."

"I did it." She couldn't keep the note of intense pride from her voice. I did it, Noah, I actually did it.

"Where do you practice?"

"Manhattan," she said, carefully avoiding any mention of her suspension.

"So you got what you wanted after all."

"Don't you have a wife and daughter to take care of?" She didn't want him to know that his words had found their mark.

"Daughter," he said, maintaining that intense eye contact. "No wife."

No wife... no wife... She had to remind herself that it didn't matter and never could. "Your daughter—"

"Sophie."

"Sophie was drenched. You don't want her to catch cold." Are you divorced, Noah? A widower? Does Sophie look like her mother? Does her mother still have a part of your heart?

"You're a doctor. You should know you catch cold from germs, not the weather."

"I remain unconvinced."

"I left Futtrello in charge. He has six kids. He'll know what to do."

"Andy Futtrello? The dockworker who used to play for the Red Sox farm team?"

"That's the one. He's our sportswriter."

"He came back to Idle Point."

"Looks like we all do, sooner or later."

"I'm only here for the wedding."

"And I'm only here to sell off the Gazette."

"I'm going back to New York right after the reception."

"Sophie and I return to London as soon as I find the right buyer."

"Not Paris?"

He shook his head. "Not Paris."

We were going to see Paris together, Noah. Do you remember? We had all of those wonderful dreams, all of those plans...

He stood up and held out his hand. "Where's your car? I'll drive you back to your father's place."

"I walked," she said. "I wasn't expecting to twist my ankle." She waved away his offer of help. "I'll be fine. Go back to the office. I'll wangle a lift from somebody."

"In case you haven't noticed, there's a storm blowing in. Why don't you quit acting like you give a damn about my time and let me drive you home before we both waste any more of the morning than we already have."

"Fine," she said, stung. "Terrific. Drive me home. That'll be great." They had nothing to hide any more, did they? They were adults now. They both had lives of their own. One of them even had a child.

He held out his hand in a gesture that was familiar enough to break what was left of her heart. She saw them on the beach, in the shadow of the lighthouse, saw the faded blue blanket and the way his skin gleamed like burnished copper in the moonlight. She saw it all and more in that one gesture and she knew that he saw it too. It was there in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, in the warmth of his hand as she reached for him.

She tried to stand but her ankle couldn't support her weight. "Lean on me," he said, but she resisted, determined not to fall any deeper under the spell of memory than necessary. Pain, however, made the choice for her and she let him help her. He was bigger than she remembered but then that really shouldn't surprise her. He was a man now, not the boy she had known. The boy she had known no longer existed except inside her heart.

They took two steps and Noah swore under his breath. "Hold on," he said. "I'll try not to hurt you."

Too late, Gracie thought as he swept her up into his arms. From the looks of Sophie, at least five or six years too late.

#

She was stiff as a two-by-four in his arms. She looped her slender arms around his neck but she didn't rest her head against his shoulder the way she would have years ago. If it was possible to maintain your dignity despite the fact that you were cold, wet, muddy, and nursing an ankle the size of an airbus, Gracie was accomplishing it. The hood of that ridiculous tent she was wearing caught the wind like a sail and kept slapping him in the face. He didn't care. The smell of her, the warmth of her body, the way her wet hair plastered itself against his cheek, even the slap of that hood—he wanted to burn each of these sensations into his memory before the anger came rushing back in on him again. His body remembered things his brain had worked hard to forget. Holding her this way was like being eighteen again but without the uncertainty. This time he knew they weren't going to have a happy