They bought food. They drove home. They did fine right through dinner, sticking to general topics like politics, the economy, and the oncoming winter in the mountains. They disagreed on some things, but could listen to the other’s point of view.
They didn’t run into trouble until the last of the peach melba disappeared. Then he asked, “Why did you decide to come up here this time, Anne?”
It was inevitable that the talk would turn personal on some level, and she had nothing to hide. “I realized that you were right. The holidays are closing in. I’m hoping to take home a little extra strength. They’ll be tough.”
His voice was quiet. “You still miss him a lot?”
“Yes. It isn’t as bad as it was. I can accept that he’s gone now. I’m used to waking up without him. The people around me are having more trouble. They’re sometimes so solicitous it’d make you sick. Thanksgiving’s apt to be one long let’s-cheer-up-Anne ordeal.”
Mitch blew out a breath. “Oh, boy. I know what you mean there.”
“How so?” she asked, not letting it go this time. “Are you married?”
Lips pursed, he studied his hands. “No.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“Yes.”
“Are you divorced?”
“No.”
“Separated?”
“No.”
There was only one other possibility. It made sense on many different levels.
“My wife died,” he said, looking at her now.
Anne saw the pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry. You must have loved her very much.”
&(l did.”
“How did she die?”
His jaw clenched, and anger joined the pain. She was wondering if the anger was directed at her, when he grew mellow again. “I’d rather not go into it. That’d be getting more personal than we planned.”
“But it helps to talk sometimes. Doesn’t it? I mean, if you’re angry-“
“Who’s angry?”
“I thought I saw-“
“What about your anger? I’ve heard it, you know. Do you talk about it?” He pushed his chair back but didn’t rise. Both hands clutched the edge of the table. “You don’t know what I’m feeling. You don’t know anything about me, about my work, my responsibilities. How can you be so sanctimonious?”
She recoiled. “Sanctimonious? I was just trying to help. After what I went through not so long ago, I may be feeling some of what you are, and yes, I may want to talk about it. I may want a little help, myself.”
The confession startled her. She was wondering where it had come from, when Mitch sat back and asked quietly, “How did Jeff die?”
She glanced around the room, but there was no avoiding the issue. So she studied her wedding band. “He was in an accident.”
“I know that. But what kind? Were you with him?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Tell me.”
“He was on a business trip. The plane went down.”
In the silence that followed, she raised her eyes. Mitch looked pale. “When did it happen?” he asked.
“Last January.” He flinched. It was a while before he said, “It’s been nearly a year. Do you date at all?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“Now look who’s being sanctimonious. When did your wife die?”
“Last winter.” He held her gaze.
“Do you date?” It was a foolish question. She knew it the minute she saw the wry twist of his mouth.
“I’m not sure you’d call it dating. When I want a woman, I get one.” He took a breath, paused on the verge of saying more, then dropped it. “At any rate, I have other obligations.”
“Female-related obligations?”
He watched her closely. “Yes.”
“see.”
“No, I doubt you do. But maybe that’s better for now.”
She didn’t know what he meant, but she wasn’t asking. She had too much pride. Besides, questions weren’t part of the deal. If she hadn’t asked that last one, she wouldn’t be feeling suddenly low.
Mitch stirred. “Do me a favor?” His eyes were softer. “Take those pins out of your hair and put a red ribbon in it.”
“I don’t have a red ribbon.”
“Anything bright will do.”
“Am I that depressing to be with?”
He left his seat then and circled the table. “No, Annie. I’ve never found you depressing.” He began removing the hairpins and didn’t stop until he had her hair spread over her shoulders. Then he hunkered down so that he was closer to eye level. “But I think you overdo the starkness. You don’t have to punish yourself for your husband’s death. Losing him is ample punishment all by itself.”
She had to hand it to him. He was perceptive enough, but she assumed that he spoke from experience. So what was his punishment? His arm?
Those other obligations he mentioned?
But he didn’t appear to be thinking of other obligations just then. He was fingering her hair, seeming entranced by its sheen. “You look so pretty with your hair down, Anne.”
When his eyes rose, her stomach flipped over. They could talk all they wanted about not being ready for this, but when they were close, it just happened. His eyes fell to her lips. He rubbed them with a thumb, then leaned forward and touched them with his tongue. The tip of his tongue. ‘tracing her mouth from corner to corner with devastating leisure.
Anne liked what he did. She closed her eyes and sighed, enjoying each small touch for the pleasure it brought. When she began to tremble, she clutched Mitch’s shoulders. They were made for that, for clutching. They were large, solid, and warm.
But part of being pleasured was pleasuring back. It was instinctive, and no hardship at all, because she was hungry. What he did satisfied her for only a short time. She moved her mouth and found more, moved her tongue and found even more, and above it all were the throaty sounds Mitch made, telling her that he was getting hotter.
When he murmured, “Christ,” there was awe in his tone. Incredibly, though, he backed up. He sat down hard on the floor, draped his forearms over bent knees, and his forehead on his wrists. “Christ, ” he whispered, then raised his head. His eyes were filled with amusement and sex.
It was a minute before the sex part faded. Then he threw back his head, dragged in a long breath, and hauled himself to his feel. From a safe distance, he said, “About your hair. You’ll need to wear something red or orange if you’re going to hike with me tomorrow morning. It’s deer-hunting season.”
They spent the better part of the next morning in the woods. It was cold, but Mitch kept her moving, leading her over trails she had never explored, through gullies she had never seen. A red wool cap kept her head warm, mittens warmed her hands.
With the trees bare of leaves, vistas were open as they hadn’t been in September. Mitch led her from hilltop to hilltop, one view more far-reaching than the next. The land was quiet. Forest creatures were hidden away. The doe that had stood on her hind legs to chomp on a crisp apple now hid from the hunter. Chipmunks and squirrels were burrowed in their dens. There was the rustle of evergreen boughs in the wind, the icy gurgle of the brook as it charged downstream, the crunch of their boots on the near-frozen ground.
Anne’s cheeks were as red as her cap when they returned, tired but exhilarated, and it was a harbinger of the days ahead. They settled into the comfort of easy companionship, sharing not only meals, but most every other time of the day. Mitch read when Anne did, his eye occasionally catching hers. They played backgammon in front of the fire, and worked together on a jigsaw puzzle. The weather held, offering pleasant days with clear skies, and an invigorating chill to the night. They walked together and worked together, Anne on her translating, Mitch on papers dug from an overstuffed briefcase. They lived in the here and now, avoiding talk of the city like the plague.
All too soon, Anne loaded up her car for the return trip to New York. Slinging an arm across her shoulder, Mitch walked her from the house a final time. The silence had been heavier that morning than at any other point in the week. Anne knew its cause.
“Will you be spending Thanksgiving with your family?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” She took in his handsome features, studying, memorizing. “And you?”
“The same.” He held her just a little closer. “Plans for New Year’s Eve?”
They had reached the car. She faced him, smiling sadly. “Funny. I used to worry about New Year’s Eve. Would I have a date? Would I not? Would he be tall, dark, and handsome? Now it doesn’t seem to matter.” She sighed. “No, I don’t have a date. I may just plant myself on my sofa with a bottle of Chablis and a book.”
“Why not do it here?” His eyes were deep green, the color of saying something important.
Her pulse raced. “What?”
“Spend New Year’s Eve here.”
“Will you?” she asked without premeditation. He pulled her close, into the warmth of his sheepskin jacket. “Yes.”
“What about your other obligations?” Unpremeditated also, but the answer mattered.
Mitch was a minute in answering. “She goes to bed too early for my tastes, certainly too early to make it to midnight. No,” he grinned, “she wouldn’t be much fun on New Year’s Eve. Besides, she’s not a fan of Chablis.”
Anne didn’t know what to say to that, but his good humor was infectious. She relaxed in his arms and rested her hands on his chest.
“How about it?” he coaxed softly. “New Year’s Eve here?”
“I don’t know, Mitch. This thing is so bizarre.”
“Are you afraid?” His hands drew light circles on her back.
“A little.”
“Of me?”
She was acutely aware of the swell of his broad chest beneath her palms. “No.” She eyed the ribbed pattern of his sweater, and whispered, “Of me.”
“You have nothing to fear, Annie,” he assured her gently. He took her chin with his fingers and tipped up her face. It was the closest physically that they’d been since that first day. “I know what my own needs are right now, and they don’t include making things harder for you. By helping you through New Year’s, I may just help myself, so there’s a selfish motive involved.”
She nearly drowned in the deep, deep green of his eyes.
“So, what do you say?” he asked.
“I say this is starting to sound like a Neil Simon script.” She wanted reassurance that meeting again was right. She wanted him to say, There’s reason why that script made millions for the guy, it’s a damned good plot, it makes a whole lot of sense.
But Mitch only shrugged. Dropping his arms, he moved back. “It’s your choice. I’ll be here anyway.”
She hated the sudden sound of indifference, but it made it easier to leave. When he opened the door, she slipped behind the wheel.
“Drive carefully,” he said.
“I will.” Backing the car around, she straightened the wheel. She gave Mitch a last, longing glance before putting a foot on the gas. The car had barely moved forward when his voice echoed in the winter wood.
“Hey, wait!”
She braked. His long-legged gait quickly brought him alongside the car. His breath misted the air when he leaned into the window.
“Don’t forget to pack a dress. We’ll be going out.” He grinned and popped a featherlight kiss on the tip of her nose. “Now, go, before the snow gets here.”
She went.
Thanksgiving wasn’t nearly as bad as Anne had expected. She spent it at her parents’ house with their usual crowd, and, yes, she missed Jeff. But there were interesting people to talk with, and chaos enough to pretend that Jeff might just be off in another room. Her major discomfort proved to be a stomachache from eating more heavily than she had in a year, but an antacid and a long walk with her father eased that pain.
Work kept her busy, as did, to her dismay, unfinished business relating to the plane crash. The FAA had finally come through with its findings, and Anne’s lawyer had filed suit against the airline-a small, privately owned one-for the inadequate upkeep and safety-check procedure of its craft.
Anne had always known that the suit was a possibility, but her appetite for it had waned. Not so Jeff’s parents’ appetite. They kept the lawyer on the case even after Anne asked them to stop.
Now the wheels of justice were turning. The lawyer called her in for meeting after meeting. Rarely did a day go by when he didn’t phone her with one question or another. The latest word was that there would be a hearing in early April. Anne cringed at the thought.
She was tired of reliving the accident, tired of the horror, the helplessness, the anger. She would love Jeff until the day she died, but she needed to live until then.
And there was Mitch. Something had begun to change-in her life, in her outlook, in her attitude toward him. He was becoming real. When she was low, she thought of him and felt better. The prospect of seeing him for the New Year’s holiday became part of her daily routine.
It worried her a little. She wondered if she was building him up to be something he wasn’t. She remembered him as being smart, solid, and strong, as offering protection and comfort, stimulation and challenge. At times he seemed larger than life, too large for a plane crash to kill. She half-suspected he would look at the burning debris and walk away unscathed.
It occurred to her that after building him up, she might be in for a letdown when she saw him again. She figured she had until New Year’s to get a grip on herself.
As it happened, she was wrong.
Alexander Robie, the professor for whom she did the ongoing grant work, organized a dinner for the seven people involved with the project. There were two secretaries, three research assistants, Alex and a colleague of his, and Anne. Thumbing his nose at the usual budget restraints, Alex reserved a long table at one of New York’s finest restaurants. Only because she had refused him on so many other occasions, Anne agreed to let him pick her up and drive her to the dinner.
She was self-consciousness when they arrived together, but the awkwardness faded. No one seemed to think twice about it. Besides, she knew these people and liked them. This was the kind of dinner with friends that she and Jeff had always enjoyed.
And Mitch? Did he like spending time with friends? There were other groups in the restaurant. Her eye skimmed one or two, then went to a third, and her pulse tripped. A man there had Mitch’s hair and good looks. He wore a dark suit and tie, and a crisp white shirt. He was with a woman. In all the time Anne watched, he didn’t take his eyes from her face.