Embers (64 page)

Once in a while they'd stop in front of an appealing shop display. Wyler was keeping one eye open for engagement rings, because you never knew, but Meg seemed restless, and so they'd press on.

"Do you have all your souvenirs?" she asked at one point.

"Who for?" he responded simply.

She gave him a sorrowful look that he didn't altogether mind; maybe she'd come back with him out of pity.

Whatever it takes,
he thought, beginning to feel a little desperate. He couldn't very well propose to her in the middle of a pottery shop or a T-shirt store. He'd already asked her if she was hungry, and she'd said no, so there went the restaurants. What was left?

With
Lydia
it had been so easy. Red roses; dinner downtown; the presentation of the ring as they lingered over Irish coffee. It was all done by the book. He knew the drill, and
Lydia
loved it, and that was that. But
Meg.
She was too
...
uncommon, too otherworldly, for the tried-and-true approach.

He wanted to knock her socks off, dammit, and that was why he hadn't got a ring: he couldn't afford a ring from Saturn, and nothing else was good enough.

They were past the shops now, on the waterfront. Meg wanted to keep walking, so they struck out along the Shore Path, a pedestrian walkway that followed the curve of the ocean, compliments of the original rich folk who owned the adjacent shorefront.

"I wonder if her plane will get off," Meg mused. "In this mull, maybe not."

The fog was thick, no doubt about it. They could see the few yards of rocky shore exposed by the low tide, and that was it. Where the sea began, visibility ended. From somewhere in the middle of the soup they heard the pathetic bleet of a handheld air horn. Some boater new to the game was lost and scared, Wyler figured.

He felt for him. "Boy, the only thing worse than water you can see is water you
can't
see," he murmured.

Meg laughed softly and said, "It's never going to be your thing, is it. The sea, I mean."

He shrugged. "I think I'm a fire sign," he said, and left it at that. He didn't want to think about how well he fit or didn't fit in
Maine
. That wasn't the issue right now.

They walked along at a leisurely amble, watching the kids skipping stones, laughing, screaming, exploring the tide-bared shore: little kids, middle kids, preteens and teeners, many of them bent over, fannies out, searching for treasure. A dead crab, a bit of driftwood, really icky seaweed
—
to them, all of it was treasure. He saw the shore, really for the first time, through their eyes.

"I've been here for months and I still can't get over how innocent the kids all seem," he confessed to Meg. "They're a different species from what I know."

"Because you see kids in jail, or on the way to it," Meg said. "
And yet ...
I truly believe that if you hauled them out here and dumped them on this beach, they'd have half a chance. Kids will stay kids a little longer if you give them someplace to play."

An old man, huddled under a blanket on his chaise longue on the grassy strip alongside the footpath, looked up from his book at the sound of their voices and smiled a greeting, which they returned.

"Sometimes they stay kids for a
long,
long time," Meg added, still smiling, after they passed him.

Wyler plucked a slender stem of ryegrass and stuck it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully on it. There was so much going on in his mind, and his heart was so full
—
and time was so short. What coul
d he say to persuade her to leave this serene and tranquil world?

They were nearing the southeastern end of the rocky beach, approaching an enormous boulder ten feet high and wide that stood balanced on one of its rounded corners. It was a striking sight, looming up as it did from the pebble-strewn shore. At the moment a couple of small kids were trying to scale it, grabbing little niches and footholds wherever they could.

"Their first Everest," Wyler said, wistfully envious. "How did it get here, anyway?"

"Dumped there by a glacier," Meg explained. "It gets nudged around by the sea every blue moon or so, if the storm is furious enough."

"And it stays on edge like that? So precarious?"

"As far as I know. It's a solid little pebble," she said, indulging the Down East penchant for understatement. "It's not going anywhere. That's why it's called Balance Rock."

"Let's climb it," he said suddenly.

Laughing, she said, "You're kidding."

He took her by the hand and dragged her over to it
—
by now the youngsters had given up
—
and offered her a foothold in his linked hands. But this was Meg, and she knew the easiest, fastest way up it; all he had to do was follow her.
They sat down side by side on the high, unsupported edge of the boulder. Meg was right: it wasn't going anywhere.

Meg pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her forearms around her shins, peering into the silver murkiness ahead.

Now?
he wondered.
Is now the time?

She said, "So you leave tomorrow. It hardly seems possible."

It's time.

"You know I can't just walk away from you," he said.

He was watching her closely, the way he watched a defendant when the jury brought back a verdict, the way he watched a crucial witness in an interrogation: if she blinked, if she swallowed, if she winced or smiled or was determined not to react at all
—
he wanted to know.

She drew in a long, slow breath, and then let it out again: not a yes; not a no. He went on.

"I want you to come back with me, Meg. I want you to be my wife."

She said nothing.

He thought,
Well, okay, forget the
tears-of-happiness-and-arms-around-
my-neck response.
But
some
little thing would be nice.

Instead, she turned her face and looked at him almost slyly and said, "If you stay
—
all this will be yours." Then she made a wide, sweeping gesture at the fog.

A counteroffer was not what he expected. "All what, Meg?" he asked. "I can't make my living from the sea. As we know."

Her smile was sad and anxious and dead earnest as she said, "You know what I mean. You love it here, you said so yourself. The family's taken to you; Terry dotes on you. And don't think you haven't got used to the quiet. You get annoyed if a dog barks too long. How do you think you'll do in the middle of the downtown
Loop
?"

"What am I supposed to do here?" he asked, amazed that she was serious. "How am I supposed to support you? Get a job in a canning factory?"

"No, obviously not," she said, hurt by the sarcasm. "Help me run the Inn Between."

"Oh, just what you need
—
a guy who thinks a screwdriver is a murder weapon."

"I don't need a handyman; I have Lloyd for that. I need you, Tom," she said, her lip trembling with emotion. "For me."

"Meg
...
I don't want to run an inn."

"You
have
to want to run an inn. Don't you read
Reader 's Digest?
It's everyone's
dream
to run an inn."

He let out a small laugh of sinking expectations. "Now, see, that's the thing: I've always had this other dream. In my dream, I have enough money for food and car payments and
— fingers crossed
—
to send my kid or kids to college. Call me crazy."

"I
know what the problem is," she said, turning on all fours and beginning a nimble scramble down the rock. "This has nothing to do with college!"

He wasn't quick enough to track her exact route.
The hell with
it, he thought, and dropped to the ground from a fairly high point, setting his recovery back
—
again.

"All right," he said, hands on his hips. "You tell
me
.
What's my problem?"

"Your
problem
is, you're a crime snob. Our crimes don't meet your minimum standard for violence. Well, give us time to catch up, mister," she said scathingly. "Everyone knows we're a backward state."

"Hey, don't sell yourself short. Your family has a damn good crime portfolio. Granted, you
are
the exception around here
—"

"Go to hell," she said. She turned from him and started marching off.

He grabbed her and swung her around and didn't give a
damn
if she cried assault. "You're not walking away from this, Meg. We stay till we're done."

"Done what? Negotiating?"

"Yeah, okay, call it that!"

She looked at him incredulously. "We're talking about a lifetime commitment, not a trade union contract!"

"Tell me what you want," he said doggedly.

"I've told you! I want
you!
Here!"

"I can't do that," he repeated. "There's no career for me here."

"So you want me to give up everything
—
my family, my friends, my house, my responsibilities, my
life
...
what about you?" she suddenly asked, plunging her hands in the pockets of her yellow windbreaker. "What are
you
willing to give up?"

"All right," he said angrily, because he knew he didn't have much to put on the table. "How about this? I'll sell the condo. We'll live in a separate house, with a separate yard. We'll get a dog. And a riding mower. And I'll take every minute of my allotted vacation."

It was starting to rain. In her clinging windbreaker, with her wet ringletted hair, Meg looked like something he'd just fished out of the sea. He didn't care. It was part of her great beauty, that she could lose herself in her concentration on someone else.

He racked his brain thinking of what cops' wives wanted, what
Lydia
had wanted. "I can't do squat about the shift rotation," he confessed, thinking of the big thing. "The hours will be screwy. But I
promise
you, Meg, the way I never promised
Lydia
: I will do my damndest to put you
—
and ours
—
first, before the job. Believe me when I say I didn't do that before."

She was so intent, listening to every word, ignoring the rain that was coming down harder now. Everyone else had cleared out fast. The old man was gone, and all the kids. No one was there but him, her, and the rock.

Instead of answering him, she said with anguish, "What about Comfort? Who'll be there for her third trimester? What about my dad? He's frail and forgetful. Who'll run the inn? Who'll save the house?"

She rapped off the questions like bullets from an automatic, and she wasn't done yet. "Who'll stand up to Uncle Billy? Without me here
—"

"Hold it, hold it!" he cried, unwilling to follow her down that road. He took her by her shoulders and yanked her closer to him, resisting the urge to shake some sense into her.
God,
she was a hard sell.

"There will
always
be someone who needs you," he said, at his wits' end. "Can't you see that? You're that kind of woman. It's like there's a sign around your neck: 'Bring me your shy, your needy, your laundry
...
'
I
need you; I'm not denying it. I need you the way
—"

He was utterly at a loss for words to describe how he needed her; he made a sound, deep in his throat, of frustration, then bent his face to hers and pulled her into a kiss that left him dizzy with love for her. "Like
that,"
he said, his breath ragged. "I need you like that."

So much for the moon and the sun and the stars. All he could give her, all he could lay at her feet, was a kiss.

"Tell me," he demanded hoarsely, "tell me you need
me
like that."

"I
do
,"
she answered, her eyes red with rimming tears. "But I
can't.
I can't leave everyone and everything behind, any more than that rock can be rolled away from this beach. This is where I belong, Tom. This is who I am."

His gaze followed her outstretched, pointing hand to Balance Rock: there it was, solid and immovable, as much a part of the coastline as the brooding fog that wrapped them both in its embrace. He stared at the rock with loathing; it represented everything about her that he couldn't overcome.

The rain was letting up, but the fog was moving in more closely, gray and misty and somehow magical. He felt empowered by it, and a little crazy.