She lowered her lashes. “I suppose I’d have to learn to cook, unless I’m an old maid living in Birdie’s house.”
“From what I hear, that’s not gonna happen.”
“No?”
“You got every fellow for fifty miles thinking he’s some kind of Romeo.”
“Me and the Blackburn farm.”
“I don’t rightly think it’s the farm.” His smile was lazy and self-assured.
She brightened. “Then what could it be?”
“Might be those green eyes.”
“A man would marry a woman just for the color of her eyes?”
“Not just for that.”
She knew better than to continue this, but she was helpless. “What else?”
He set down the cup. “Any number of things. You and your sister are the prettiest girls in the county.”
She had said she was never afraid, but of course that had been a lie. She was afraid right now, afraid he was going to tell her he was in love with Birdie. She tried to postpone that declaration.
“How are you at digging for roots?”
“I might be persuaded.”
She reached for the cup with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. He reached for it at the same moment. Their hands touched, and before she could withdraw hers, he captured it, wrapping his fingers over it so that she could not pull away.
“What might
you
be persuaded to do?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean because my father’s not here to protect me?”
“No, I mean because you might need another man to take on that job. One who might want to protect you for the rest of your life.”
She felt such a rush of joy she couldn’t speak. She just looked at him, but she knew the answer was in her eyes.
“It’s me you want?” she asked in something close to a whisper.
“It’s always been you, Leah. Never anyone else.”
“Why did you stay away, then? After Mama and Daddy died.”
“You needed to grieve. I didn’t want to mix myself up in that. I didn’t want you coming to me because you were grateful or scared.”
“I told you, I don’t get scared.”
“I’ve been scared you might find someone else while I stayed away.”
“Oh, Jesse…”
He put his arm around her and pulled her close. When he kissed her, it was better than anything she had ever imagined. Jesse, her childhood friend and tormentor. Jesse, the man who wanted her as much as she wanted him.
“What about Birdie?” she asked when he reluctantly pulled away. “I cain’t leave her alone. She won’t be able to manage. She has to be with me.”
“If you want, we’ll stay at your place with Birdie. Ma and Luther can stay on at mine. When they’re gone, we’ll work it out. Sell one, farm both.” He shrugged. “It don’t hardly matter, Leah. Birdie can live with us wherever we are. We’ll be together. Where we’re living won’t make a difference.”
He put his arms around her and pulled her against him, closer this time, and with more insistence.
She gave in to the embrace and to the man, and as she kissed him back, she gave him her answer.
I
saac woke up earlier now that Kendra wasn’t sleeping beside him. At first, after the shooting, he had launched himself upright every morning in a frantic, instinctive effort to find his wife. Now he woke up well before his alarm went off but fully aware that he was alone, and why.
He supposed there was an advantage to not being able to sleep. He could avoid the worst of rush hour, beating many of the State Department employees and university students who poured into Foggy Bottom. He could arrive at ACRE headquarters and partially clear his desk before the majority of the staff arrived. Some days, if he woke up particularly early, he jogged the miles to work, showering and changing into suitable clothes once he arrived. By the time he made it to his desk, the restless energy that plagued him had dissipated. He could control his impatience with bureaucracy, and channel dogged determination into positive outcomes.
This morning he was awake before six, too late to jog but with plenty of time to shower, dress and navigate traffic. By nine, when the support staff arrived, he would be well into his day.
After the shower, he considered calling Kendra, but waking her made little sense. More truthfully, their occasional phone calls left him dissatisfied, even angry, and he wasn’t in the mood to risk another.
If Kendra missed him or their life together, she was giving no sign. She was polite. She asked about his job, about friends who were “their” friends, about the way he spent his evenings. But nothing
he
asked drew much response. She was making short trips into the world. She had bought a table and chairs for the front porch, and some gardening tools. The telephone company had hooked up a land line, and now she could access the Internet.
Then, as if this meant nothing, she announced she might buy a barn and use the logs to add on to the cabin. She would find out soon if that made any sense. Maybe even today.
Clearly, if Kendra planned to add to the cabin, she planned to make it a real home. He wondered how she would reconcile this with her job and marriage. Particularly her marriage.
He was still thinking about her when he pulled into his designated slot in ACRE’s parking garage. Parking was at a premium in the city, and ACRE had only a dozen slots in the garage, all for executives.
He remembered the first day he’d driven to work after his promotion to managing director—feeling guilty that his staff still had to carpool or take the Metro, pleased that he had worked his way into this new position, another rung on the ladder to a political appointment where his voice might be even more effective.
The move to his position at ACRE had been smooth. With undergraduate degrees in economics and environmental technology, plus a law degree, he had started as a fund-raiser at the Sierra Club. When the Maryland chapter of ACRE offered him an administrative position, he accepted it and rose quickly through the ranks to state director. He showed a knack for raising money and organizing innovative programs, as well as making important political contacts in Annapolis and D. C., so no one was surprised when he was tapped to work in the national headquarters.
ACRE would not be Isaac’s final stop. Compared to its big brothers, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy or the World Wildlife Fund, ACRE was the shrimpy kid tagging along at the edge of the crowd. Unlike its counterparts, ACRE really had concentrated on preserving one acre at a time.
Personally, he didn’t think small. The world’s resources were too precious and vanishing too quickly to rescue in tiny parcels. He was encouraged that Dennis Lavin, the new executive director, wanted to take the organization in a different direction. But Isaac’s personal plan was to continue the climb at ACRE or a similar nonprofit, then move into government when an administration that was truly committed to environmental protection took office. By then he might well have enough connections for a job where he could make a real difference.
He had managed to banish thoughts of Kendra with thoughts of his future, but they came back as he locked the car, his eyes open for interlopers. Every time he pictured the carjacking or remembered the moment he had learned she was on the way to the hospital, he felt sick.
The gloomy garage didn’t help. Rather than take the dark ramp up to the elevator, he walked down into the spring sunshine. Outside, he crossed to Gene’s Beans, which all the ACRE staff frequented because the little hole-in-the-wall had stood tall against the corporate giants determined to take over the coffee world. Gene knew every employee’s preferences, and he was always on the premises.
Isaac was on his way inside when he glimpsed a ragged cat scratching itself at the corner of the brick building beside the alley that provided parking slots for Gene’s staff. The ginger tabby looked as if he had grown up on D. C.’s streets. He was Garfield without the paunch, but judging by the way he eyed Isaac, he had all the comic strip cat’s sass and bravado, plus an ear that had been noticeably chewed up in a fight. Isaac turned for a closer look.
“Hey, fellow. Looking for a handout?”
The cat had cynical eyes. He tilted his misshapen head, as if to say,
I know your game, buster, and I ain’t playin’
.
“Somebody tied a can or two to that tail, didn’t they,” Isaac said.
The cat struck a pose that clearly said,
What’s it to you?
Isaac went inside for his breakfast.
The cat was still beside Gene’s Dumpster when he returned, but it dodged the hand he held out and abandoned him for something more promising in the alley. Isaac crossed the street to start his day.
Dennis Lavin was just getting to the office, too. He was nearly Isaac’s height, twenty years his senior and bald enough to make a comb-over futile. Probably to draw attention elsewhere, he had grown a salt-and-pepper beard and mustache that were always perfectly trimmed. Isaac wondered if the beard was also a statement that Dennis was a liberal in whom ACRE could place its faith, even if his suits and approach to management were strictly Brooks Brothers standard issue.
“I like to see my staff putting in long hours,” Dennis said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good to see you making up some of those days you missed, even though we didn’t begrudge a one of them. Your wife’s recovering nicely?”
Isaac knew better than to say he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter, because Dennis immediately began a recital of all he intended to accomplish that day, ending with a curt wave as he headed for his office suite.
By nine, Isaac was glad he had arrived early. He’d managed to cull his e-mail, respond to three serious inquiries from potential donors, and write a short summary of the speech he planned to give at an upcoming conference on America’s rain forests.
His staff had trickled in all morning, stopping to exchange a few pleasantries. His assistant, Heather Griswold, left a homemade chocolate chip muffin on his desk, another team member left an article from the
New York Times
. By ten they assembled in the closest conference room to compare notes on the week to come. In the afternoon, he would go over his notes and theirs with senior management.
By the time they had traded jokes and stories, coordinated calendars and discussed the most important issues of the day, the morning was nearly over. Isaac got to the final item on the agenda.
“Pallatine Mountain.” He looked up. “Mr. Forsythe is still considering his options. No one’s heard any different?”
Heather, who had met with Gary Forsythe on the day Kendra was discharged from the rehabilitation hospital, turned up her hands. They were wide and capable, with blunt fingernails covered in clear polish. Heather always looked as if she had stepped off the Appalachian Trail into casual business clothes. Her blond hair was short and spiky; her square face was unadorned by makeup. Even though she was only a few inches over five feet, she could carry a forty-pound pack without breaking a sweat, and men who weren’t threatened found her attractive.
“He seemed open-minded the day we had lunch,” she said. “He claimed the decision would take some time. But he hasn’t returned my calls.”
Pallatine Mountain in central Virginia was Isaac’s pet project, a larger property than ACRE usually took on. To him, it represented a swing in the way things would be done in the future, preservation on a grander scale. Pallatine seemed key to ACRE’s march into the future.
“This is one of the most important transactions we can make,” he reminded them. “I don’t want to lose an entire mountainside to some developer who plans to build a ski resort or a hunting lodge. Any ideas?”
For the next twenty minutes they batted around possibilities, and Heather took notes.
At noon the meeting broke up, and his team members went back to their desks or off to lunch. Isaac and Heather were the last out.
“Are you eating in?” she asked.
“I didn’t bring anything.”
“Want to grab sandwiches?”
They continued discussing the meeting as they headed for a shop on the next block and took a place in the line that was already out the door.
“I didn’t want to say anything in there,” Heather said, “but I was getting all kinds of vibes from Gary Forsythe.”
“You should have mentioned that.”
She pursed her lips, as if deciding how to phrase her concerns. “Thing is, you’ve had a lot on your mind. And I have nothing more than a feeling. Mr. Forsythe seems torn. He’s not a rich man. Land rich, maybe, but that’s all. I think he wants to do what’s right, but he has grown children, and he’d like to leave them and any future grandchildren a solid legacy.”
“So far that’s not really news.”
“Well, he mentioned a couple of daughters and then, after some hesitation, a son. Turns out the son is an attorney.”
Isaac imagined a young man with leatherbound volumes open to the inheritance laws of the State of Virginia. “I’m beginning to get a picture here.”
Her expression softened. “Afraid so. But then, you’re an attorney yourself.”
“I never wanted to practice law, only understand it.”
“I have a feeling the son’s interested in money, and there’s always going to be a developer who can outclass us. The son probably doesn’t have any particular attachment to the mountain, the way his father does. Mr. Forsythe told me that when he was a boy, his father took him all over Pallatine hunting black bear. It’s funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t be more opposed to hunting, but half the time it’s hunters who want to keep America’s wild places intact.”
“I guess Gary didn’t take his lawyer son hunting enough.”
“He said his son was a city boy. Actually, he said, ‘My son never did understand the way his old man thinks.’ Maybe I’m making too much out of it. Or maybe…”
Isaac waited. He was not patient, but neither was he a prodder.
“Well, it bothers me,” Heather said as they moved into the sandwich shop and closer to the counter.
“What bothers you, exactly?”
“I know we need to protect Pallatine. I’m convinced. But it’s hard to know what to do. Do I want to be responsible for a rift in this family? I can imagine being a fly on the wall at a Forsythe reunion in, say, 2015. They’ll still be talking about poor Gary, who gave away the only thing of worth the family ever owned.”
“We’re talking about a land deal in the millions here. He’s not signing it over free and clear. He’ll walk away a rich man.”
“But he would walk away a lot richer if he sold to a developer. And who’s to say that wouldn’t be okay? People would use the land and enjoy it. They’d be close to nature when they zoomed down the slopes.”
“Slopes that had been cleared by fleets of bulldozers. Slopes marred by ski lifts and condos and mountain lodges. You want another Wintergreen? Without the environmental conscience?” Wintergreen was a ski resort farther south. Some 6,000 of its 11,000 acres had been set aside for wilderness preservation, and various environmentally sensitive practices were in place. But now there were golf courses and ski slopes, as well as myriad homes and condos, on land that had once been pristine Blue Ridge, and no one could guarantee that same high level of ecological commitment for new projects, like Pallatine.
“You know, Isaac, you’re always so sure of yourself. Don’t you ever have doubts? You set a goal, and you don’t let anything get between you and it. I’m pretty bullheaded, but I guess I see more shades of gray.”
He had indeed found her bullheaded but he didn’t smile. This was an important distinction, and she needed to understand it. “I see all the shades. But I also see that if you take too long weighing and dodging the important decisions, nothing will get done. It’s our job to secure Pallatine for the future, however we do it. I’ll be sorry if Forsythe’s son punishes his dad for making a good decision. But that won’t affect mine.”
They reached the counter. He ordered tuna on rye, and at the last moment asked for two sandwiches, one without mayo.
“You’re hungry today,” she said. “Are you eating okay?”
“The second one’s for a friend.”
When their sandwiches arrived, they took them back to their desks and got down to work. After his afternoon meeting, Isaac came back to settle in yet again, and hours later he was surprised when Heather knocked on his door to say she was leaving.
“It’s seven,” she said. “And you got here early, didn’t you?”
He felt a quick stab of guilt; then he remembered that Kendra was not waiting at home. He could work all night and no one would know the difference.
“You go on,” he said. “I’ll leave in a little while. I’m just finishing up.”
She said goodbye, and he could hear her gathering things off her desk. In a few minutes the building was quiet. He doubted he was the last one left, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
He put his hands over his head and stretched. For just a moment he imagined what it would feel like to go home to his wife, to take her to bed or take her to dinner. Those pleasures, which had once seemed so incidental to the larger picture of his life, now seemed central. He didn’t recall ever being lonely. Perhaps he had been as a child, before he learned how futile it was to wish for things he could never have.