Envy(101)

When she did leave the table, her pace and posture were dignified. Her back was straight, her head high, and as Parker watched her disappear through the kitchen door, he felt like the lowest life-form on earth.

He had accused her of using him to get to Noah, when precisely the opposite was at play. He was using her to get to Noah.

Afraid she would leave before he could apologize, he backed his chair out of the kitchen and quickly rolled it down the central hallway and through the front door. He was relieved to find her on the veranda, leaning into one of the support columns, staring out at the giant live oaks that stood sentinel on both sides of the front path.

“Maris.”

“I’ll leave in the morning.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

She laughed softly but without humor. “You don’t know what you want, Parker. To write. Not to write. To be famous. To be a recluse. To have me here. To send me away. You don’t even know whether or not you want to go on living.

“Whatever the case, I shouldn’t have come back. My reasons for returning were muddled at best, even to me. I should have stayed in New York where I belong and left you alone to luxuriate in your anger and bitterness and to keep boozy company with a ghost. You can get back to your pathetic pastimes tomorrow after I leave.”

He rolled his chair directly behind her and placed his hands on either side of her waist where it flared into hips. “Don’t leave.”

Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead into the small of her back. He rolled it to the left and right of that shallow depression while his fingers flexed, tightening his grasp on her.

“I don’t give a damn why you came back, Maris. I swear I don’t. Even if you are here just to make your husband angry, I don’t care. You’re here, and I want you to be.”

He moved his hands around to her front, where he rested them for a time on the knot of her shirt before slipping them beneath it and touching her skin. Massaging gently, he gradually drew her backward.

She spoke his name plaintively, part statement, part query, part sigh of resignation.

He continued to draw her backward until her knees bent and he settled her onto his lap. He turned her, draping her legs over an armrest of his chair so that he was cradling her like an infant.

She looked up at him with concern. “Is this all right?”

He sifted her hair through his fingers. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, then dragged it across her lower lip. “This is perfect.”





Chapter 23


It required all his willpower not to kiss her then. He knew she expected it, which was one reason he didn’t. The other was because he was still feeling guilty over suggesting that her motives weren’t pure. As though his were.

“Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

“A ride?”

“Down to the beach.”

“I can walk.”

“You can ride.”

He disengaged the brake and navigated the wheelchair down the ramp off the veranda onto a paved path that led through the woods. “This is convenient,” she remarked.

“I had the paths laid during the reconstruction of the house.”

“Mike said you never even considered using a motorized chair, that you like doing things the hard way.”

“Self-propulsion is good exercise. Mike feeds me well. I don’t want to go to flab.”

“What is that wonderful smell?”

“Magnolia.”

“There aren’t any fireflies out tonight.”

“The lightning bugs think it’s going to rain.”

“Is it?”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

The paved path went as far as the sand dunes, where it connected to an elevated path constructed of weathered wood planks. Sea oats brushed against Maris’s legs as they went over the dunes. Beyond them, the path expanded into a platform exactly eight feet square. Parker stopped and set the brake on the wheelchair.

The deserted beach spread out before them. From this stretch of it, the mainland couldn’t be seen. It looked as primordial as it had been when it was formed. The moon was obscured by the dense cloud cover, but it shed enough light to see the surf as it broke. It left a silvery residue that sparkled briefly before dissolving into the sand. The breeze was as soft as the breath of a sleeping baby, and the only sound was the redundant swish of the tide.

“This is an amazing place.” Maris spoke in a reverential whisper usually reserved for church. “Dense forest growing right up to the beach.”

“And no high-rise hotels to spoil the view.” Rather than appreciating the view, he was rubbing a strand of Maris’s hair between his fingers, studying the texture, enjoying the feel of it.

She turned her head to look at him. “What kind of narcotics?”

“Ah. I should’ve known you’d catch that slip of the tongue.”

“I did. And it’s been on my mind ever since. What kind of narcotics did you take?” Her expression wasn’t censorious, simply interested. Sympathetic, maybe.

He let go of her hair and lowered his hand. “Pharmaceuticals. Painkillers. Great big quantities of them. Heaping handfuls.”

“Because of your legs?”

“It was a long recovery.”

“From what, Parker?”