The Last White Knight (23 page)

Lynn knew the wave of interest and support would level off and then die down, but Lillian and Martha made hay while the sun was shining, parlaying Horizon’s sudden trendiness into a substantial down payment on land where new facilities would eventually be built. They didn’t want to rely on the charity of St. Stephen’s or the bishop. The move to church property had always been only a temporary answer to their housing problem. The windfall from the Elliot Graham debacle ensured that they would have a place to go to permanently, a place where they could conduct their business without interference.

With the stress of the relocation dispute behind them, Lynn submerged herself in her work. She spent her days with the girls and worked late into the evening arranging her office and sorting through files. She left little time for thinking about her private life, often spending the night at Horizon on the sofa just to avoid being alone.

The long hours and lack of sleep were taking a toll on her. She’d lost weight and there were crescents of lavender beneath her eyes. Lillian, the typical doctor’s wife, clucked at her to go see a doctor. Martha offered quiet understanding and let it be known that
her shoulder was available anytime of the day or night. Father Bartholomew, dear man that he was, gathered up the courage for a foray to the supermarket in order to bring her a box of Twinkies.

“They’re no substitute for prayer,” he said solemnly, glasses sliding down his nose. “But they’re on my list of next-best comforts.”

Lynn had accepted them with heartfelt thanks, but she had yet to touch them. They sat petrifying in the bottom drawer of her desk. She wasn’t ready to be comforted just yet.

Erik had made no attempt to contact her. She had done her best to shut him out of her thoughts, futile as that effort was. Even if she had been able to stop thinking about him, his name was on everyone’s lips these days. He was the man of the moment. The press had heralded him as “the heroic hands-on senator,” editing Lynn out of the tale of Elliot Graham’s capture to suit their Lone Ranger theme. The powers of the Democratic Party were talking of running Erik against the incumbent Republican for the United States Senate seat a year down the road.

Lynn’s gaze locked on the newspaper someone had tossed on her desk, on the photo of Erik addressing a group of area farmers on the latest crisis in the dairy industry. As she had predicted, his life was moving onward and upward. There was no
telling how far he could go, how much good he could do … without her. The stab of regret was just as sharp as it had been the day she’d walked away, nearly a month ago.

I did the right thing
. That thought had become a mantra to her, words to be chanted mentally every time the longing became too much to bear.
I did the right thing
. But the words were small comfort when she lay alone in the dead of night and there was no one and nothing to distract her from the ring of hypocrisy in them.

She’d done the right thing for whom? She’d done the right thing or the easiest thing? She’d argued that walking away from Erik had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but staying with him would have been harder. She had told herself she couldn’t stay with him without jeopardizing his future, but she also couldn’t stay with him without making her peace with her family and her past, and that was something she’d never been able to find the courage to do. She had excused herself on the grounds that she’d done irreparable damage where her family was concerned, that her father and sister and the son she’d left behind would be better off closing the door on her memory, but Erik’s accusations managed to cut through all her rationalizations, and the word
coward
haunted her day and night.

Coward or martyr—either way she was still a slave to the mistakes of her youth. That didn’t seem a very healthy way to live. It wasn’t the way she would have counseled her girls to live.

“So why’d you stop seeing him?” Regan’s voice cut through the haze, blunt and to the point.

Lynn jerked her gaze away from the photograph, a guilty flush creeping across her cheeks. She turned her chair toward the door, where Regan stood in another of her gloom-and-doom uniforms of all black. The girl had made a lot of progress in the past few weeks. Lynn jokingly said she’d know they were over the hump when Regan put on clothes with some color in them. That there was color in her cheeks and something other than anger in her eyes was more than enough of a start.

“I—a—it was for the best,” Lynn stammered, caught off guard. She was usually the one asking the questions and interpreting the answers, not the other way around.

Regan gave a little snort as she stepped into the office with a four-inch-square white box clutched in her hands. She propped a hip on the desk and turned a critical eye to the newspaper article. “Best for who? You look like hell,” she commented mildly as she scanned the photo.

“Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”

“You know,” she said, completely ignoring Lynn’s sarcasm, “at first I thought he was a drag, but he turned out to be a pretty good guy. There aren’t a lot around, you know,” she added, sounding like the voice of authority on the subject.

“I know,” Lynn murmured.

“And he’s choice, besides. God, he’s got the cutest—”

“What’s with the box?” Lynn interrupted, not needing to be reminded of Erik’s anatomy.

Regan thrust the box at her. “It’s for you. A delivery guy brought it.”

Lynn accepted it hesitantly. There was no return address, only a discreet gold-foil sticker with the name of a downtown jewelry store printed in elegant black script.

“So are you going to open it?”

She shot Regan a look. “In a minute. In private,” she added pointedly.

Rolling her eyes, Regan slid off the desk and sauntered out.

Lynn turned her attention back to the box that now sat on her lap. She wasn’t sure she wanted to open it. She didn’t know what she would do if it was from Erik. On the other hand, she didn’t want to know how she would react if it
wasn’t
from him. She had the feeling that her heart was teetering on a precarious
edge and would end up falling and breaking all over again, no matter what.

She lifted the box, testing its weight. It was so light, it might have been empty. It might have been from anyone, she told herself. A former resident, a parent, someone who had seen her on the news. It might have been from Elliot Graham. He had been released on his own recognizance. And while she certainly didn’t expect gifts from him, she wouldn’t have put it past him to send her something nasty. Only Lyon’s Jeweler’s didn’t do nasty—it was the finest jewelry store in town.

“You’ll never know until you open it,” Martha said softly.

Lynn glanced up as her friend walked into the room and settled like a plump old hen in the visitor’s chair. With the move and the unpacking behind them, Martha had forsaken jeans and oversize T-shirts for her usual chic wardrobe of colorful, flowing clothes and dramatic jewelry. Tonight she was in an ensemble of teal-blue slacks and tunic that draped gracefully around her. Her earrings were gold hoops strung with teal and purple wooden beads. A beautiful amethyst crystal in an elaborate gold-wire setting hung around her neck.

“I was building the anticipation,” Lynn said.

She didn’t look for a comment from Martha, but
returned her attention to the box. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened between herself and Erik. Martha had been playing a waiting game, like a fisherman waiting for a trout to weary of the fight so he could reel it in. Lynn didn’t want to be reeled. She preferred to suffer in silence, afraid that if she ever did open the floodgates on her emotional turmoil she would never get them closed again. As a counselor, she knew that bottling up emotion was unhealthy, but she couldn’t look at her own feelings from a counselor’s point of view. She was too close to the problem to keep her own defense mechanisms from kicking in.

She broke the seal on the box and opened it, figuring whatever was inside, whoever it was from, dealing with it would be preferable to facing another minute of Martha’s stoic patience.

Nestled in a bed of rose-pink tissue paper was a tiny porcelain figurine: a white knight on a white horse perched on a pedestal of polished gray marble. It was exquisitely done, the figurine itself no more than an inch tall, and every detail perfect, from the knight’s gold-trimmed helmet to the horse’s tiny hooves. Lynn lifted it out and set the treasure on her blotter.

There was no card, but it was clear who had sent it—Erik. What wasn’t clear was
why
he had sent it.
Was it a peace offering? A memento? Was it meant to mock her? She didn’t know, couldn’t begin to say, but as she looked at the delicate figurine the sense of loneliness that struck her broadside was almost enough to make her cry out in pain.

The last white knight. Her chance at true love. And she’d shoved him out of her life with both hands.

The tears came silently at first, brimming in her eyes and sliding down her cheeks, dripping off her quivering jaw like raindrops. Then Martha was holding her hand and Lynn was sobbing, the pain ripping through her shield of self-control at last. She doubled over in her chair, nearly laying her head on her knees, her hair spilling down like a curtain on either side of her face. A wave of emotions rolled through her—loneliness, sadness, self-pity—but the strongest by far was fear. Erik was right. She was afraid to reach out for something good, afraid she didn’t deserve it. She was afraid of her past and afraid to bet on a future. And because of her fear she’d missed out on the chance of a lifetime.

“Go to him,” Martha said softly.

“I can’t,” Lynn said, nearly choking on the words.

“You love him, Lynn. He loves you. There isn’t anything love can’t conquer.”

“I’m afraid,” she murmured, lifting her head. She
snagged a handful of hair and impatiently tucked it behind her ear as she regarded her friend through the distorted windows of her tear-filled eyes. “I’m so afraid and I hate it. Everything was fine until he came along. I was satisfied with my life. I didn’t have to deal with my past. Then he came along and now nothing will ever be the same again. Why’d he have to go and make me fall in love with him?” she cried angrily, swiping a fist across her dripping nose.

Martha offered an understanding smile. “Because that’s what white knights do, honey,” she said gently. “Now you can either let him sweep you off your feet and go fight your battles together or you can go on alone, wondering for the rest of your life about what might have been. I’m not saying it won’t take courage to go with him, because it will, but do you really want to let this chance pass you by, Lynn? I don’t think you do.”

“I want to be with him,” Lynn whispered, trembling with the conflicts inside her. “I miss him so much. That doesn’t make sense. I mean I only knew him for a few weeks, but I just feel like a part of me is dead inside without him. I want to be with him, but I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt his chance at a future.”

It was the argument Lynn had clung to from the first, but it made no impact on Martha. The older
woman looked her in the eye. “And what do you think you’re doing by shutting him out?” she said. “His future is more than his career, Lynn. It’s his whole life, his chance at happiness and a family and the woman he loves. That could be the future for both of you. Don’t stop it from happening just because you’re afraid, honey. You’ve got a chance at the brass ring. Reach for it.”

Easier said than done, Lynn thought. She got up from her chair and began to move restlessly around the cramped room, her arms wrapped around herself to hold body and soul together. Maybe Erik didn’t want her back. He could have sent the figurine for any number of reasons. Maybe he was ready to move on with his life and this was his way of closing the chapter that had included her. Maybe … Maybe she was just stalling. Maybe she was looking for excuses because she didn’t have the courage to try. That was what it all came down to in the end—did she have the courage to reach for her dreams and deal with the nightmare of her past?

“I think I’ll go for a little walk by the lake and do some thinking,” she said.

“Do that.” Martha put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You’ll come to the right conclusion. I know you have the courage, even if you aren’t so sure yourself.”

Lynn managed a fond smile for her friend. “How do you know that? Did your crystal tell you?”

“This?” She dangled the piece of amethyst by its chain. “I wear this because it’s interesting and because it makes people think I’m a little off the beam. It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know in my heart.”

“You’re something special, Martha,” Lynn said, chuckling a little. She felt better for having shared this time with Martha, even though she had avoided it. God bless Martha for her tenacity.

Martha gave a snort and shooed her toward the door. “Don’t you forget it, sweetcakes. Go take your walk.”

The path across from the power plant was less traveled than those around Silver Lake Park. Given the square, ugly buildings of the power plant and the heavily traveled street across the way, the scenery left something to be desired, but the solitude was worth it. The occasional bicycle passed her. An elderly man walking his cocker spaniel met her from the other direction and moved on by with a nod. The spaniel took a cursory sniff of Lynn’s sneaker, gave a bark, and dashed to catch up with his master.

The sun had already gone down on the other side
of town, leaving the summer sky glowing orange, with the taller buildings of downtown silhouetted against it. The evening breeze was warm. It was the kind of evening people lived through the freezing Minnesota winters for. The crowd in the park was a testimony of that fact. The place was alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of summer—children playing on swings, excited shouts and laughter from a group of teens playing Frisbee with a shaggy black-and-white dog. The aroma of grilled hamburgers lingered in the air.

Lynn absorbed it all, but kept herself apart from it. She crossed Seventh Street and continued walking around the southeastern shore of the lake until she found a patch of ground no one laid claim to. There she sank to the grass, sat cross-legged, and stared across the shimmering expanse of water.