Book Lover, The (37 page)

So she began to tell him everything.

                            
42

T
HE DAYS THAT LED UP TO THE CONVENTION were busy ones for Lucy. Several nights each week were usually taken up with book club meetings, either in person or via Skype. In the brochure she was crafting to take to the convention she’d excitedly added to the cover:
Now With 30 Book Clubs in 10 States!
Inside she put a brief summary of the novel, along with her growing bookseller quotes and reviews. She was going to have five hundred printed up to give out at the convention.

Each day she also surfed the web for more book bloggers and sites where she could get some publicity, if someone was willing to read her book. Every once in a while she’d Google her name or title, amazed to find it mentioned in chat rooms and online book sites she’d never heard of, wondering how they’d heard of her. It was thrilling to see that word was spreading.

She went back to The Raptor Center often with Colin to check on their wounded eagle’s progress. And he was making some improvement. Just yesterday Kit again tried to spread his wings, and after releasing his talons from the branch finally lifted in the air, hovering a moment before landing awkwardly on the ground just a few feet from where he started. It wasn’t much, but Colin’s beaming smile was reward enough for her.

She worked furiously on the new novel, the scenes spilling from her as she stood in the shower each morning, or drove to bookstores, her recorder filling up until she could get back to the cabin and type them up. Part of it was spending so much time with Colin, and the other was that she was researching online what to expect if they decided to move forward and build a life together.

Colin wanted to read passages and hinted each morning after his swim with a teasing smile that he was ready to repay her for paddling beside him. But she kept telling him not yet, she wasn’t ready. In truth, he didn’t know what she was actually writing about, just that it somehow involved birds. She knew it would have to be finished before she’d feel comfortable letting him see it. Otherwise he might misconstrue everything.

* * *

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO BE INTIMATE WITH A MAN who is paralyzed from the waist down, Lucy learned. They began slowly, hesitantly and she was much more nervous than he was. That night, they sat on the dock watching the night sky unfold as the chorus of tree frogs, crickets and other night creatures began, a ritual she’d come to love. A glimpse of the beach on St. Augustine flashed across her mind and she knew in that moment she loved this as much. The wild, natural beauty of the northern woods, the hidden creatures of the night, even the coming winter, in which she envisioned the lake frozen over until it shone like glass, the ice-jeweled tree branches shimmering in the sun.

Earlier Colin had spent an hour loading firewood onto his deck, a task he had begun while she was away, in preparation for the coming cold weather. She watched from her cabin while he pushed himself up and down his deck, bringing logs and stacking them carefully on a wooden platform he must have had built so that no wood sat on the deck floor itself. Once again she was awed by his quiet strength, his will not to be daunted by the lowliest tasks.

Sitting beside him on a lawn chair now, she again thought he was like no one she’d ever met. Would she feel that way if she’d known him before? She wondered. Or was this strong yet tender man the result of his own loss, as she was the result of her own.

“Do you still miss the army?” she asked.

He took a long moment before answering. “Yes and no. I love living here, on the lake. But I miss my men. In the beginning I missed the structure, and the simplicity of the life. You never have much more than you can carry on your back.”

She thought about all she’d gone without in the past months, and not missed at all.

“I don’t miss the fear, for myself or one of them, that this day or hour might be your last. I don’t miss having to aim a rifle at someone, or the Godawful sand down your neck, in your eyes. I surely don’t miss the smell of garbage.”

He paused and looked up for a long moment. They were watching the nearly full moon, hoping to see birds making their way across the sky in the dark. Earlier Colin had explained that once migration began, which for some birds was already starting, they would fly day and night. And if you watched the moon carefully enough, you could see their silhouettes across its bright expanse as they winged past. Lucy was enthralled, having already spotted half a dozen.

“I never intended to make the army a career,” Colin continued after a while. “Not in the beginning. I just figured I’d straighten myself out and grow up. I was kind of lost when I graduated high school and to be truthful, I didn’t want to be like my old man. I loved him and there were a lot of good things about him, but Warwick is a small town. I heard the stories as I got older. I knew he cheated on my mother, and I knew there was a bit of that wild streak in me. I can’t imagine how that hurt her and…that’s why I wanted to wait for your divorce, you know?” He turned to her and smiled, as a ripple of unease swept through her.

A wisp of cloud drifted across the moon, and they watched the stars come out, one by one, as he talked softly, the trees and houses mere shadows in the distance. She could tell him the truth now, that David thought she was being foolish. That with a little more time she’d come to her senses. But she knew in her heart it was he who would come to his senses and realize it wasn’t love, but once again responsibility, and obligation, that was fueling his determination. Her attorney assured her that he could only delay things a while longer.

“I started as an Army Ranger,” Colin said, hushing her thoughts, “with a three-year tour, but after serving in Desert Storm, I reenlisted twice more. I knew it was hard on my mother, but after a while I felt like I was right where I always belonged. I got to see the world. And I felt good, proud to serve my country. Then 9/11 happened, and I just couldn’t leave after that. I was a soldier, it was the thing that defined me.”

“You don’t feel any bitterness about what happened?”

In the darkness he shook his head. “We all took risks, every time we left the blast zone. You lived in constant fear of being the next guy hit. But it could have been worse for me. I told you about the guys who got their heads blown apart. I saw too many of those, and if they make it home, somebody has to give up their life to care for you because you’re little more than a vegetable. Anyway, I don’t have it so bad. I can take care of myself. I have a pretty good life. The army sends me money every month, so I don’t have to worry about how I’ll survive financially. Not a bad life, really.” He turned and ran a finger down her cheek. “But then you came along and…now it’s a whole lot better.”

She smiled.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lucy. A lot you should know.”

“I realize that and…I guess I could say the same about myself.”

“Why don’t we take it slow, okay?”

She nodded.

He brought her hand to his mouth and opened it, kissing her palm softly, his lips brushing a path to her fingers, which he kissed one by one as her eyes closed.

“When I dream, I’m always the way I was before, as if the accident never happened,” he whispered. “That’s how I feel with you.”

Then he tugged her hand, to make her stand, which she did, understanding his signals already. She followed him into his cabin, where he turned out the lights, one by one, and by the glow of just a few candles, they lay on his bed and he held her full length against him, as the blood rushed to her middle. A moment later, he let go and slowly unbuttoned her blouse, kissing her collar bone, the tender hollow at the base of her neck, while a finger traced the curve of breast above her bra.

He began to kiss her on the mouth, longer, deeper, with a fierce hunger that matched her own. Her hands ran up and down his back, under his shirt, not knowing what would come next, but knowing that it no longer mattered. He stopped and looked deep in her eyes, then gently turned her around, her back to his chest. As they lay there in the candlelight, he whispered her name over and over again while his hands loved her as his body couldn’t.

                            
43

H
ALFWAY THROUGH HER DRIVE TO THE CONVENTION in Philadelphia, Lucy found herself missing Colin already. The past days had been magical, each pierced with the clarity and beauty of simply being alive. It was strange, but it felt as though after all the struggles in her life, she was where she was meant to be. David was right about one thing—you couldn’t go back in life, you had to go forward. Once she let go of the past and stopped trying to hold back, she knew with certainty that she was in love with Colin. She had probably begun to fall in love with him in that first moment she saw him rising out of the lake, naked, beautiful, imperfect.

Last night they’d gone further in their intimacy, to a place she wasn’t certain was even possible. He seemed uneasy about her leaving again, and she assured him that this time there would be no delays coming back. He cooked a beautiful candlelit dinner while she readied for the trip. Afterward, as she lay on his bed waiting for him, he came out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel across his lap. As he swung himself up and onto the bed and then turned to face her, for the first time since that morning he emerged out of the lake, she saw all of him. And she was surprised to see that he was erect as any normal man.

“The miracle of modern medicine,” he whispered with a smile.

He pulled her to him, her skin igniting as it touched his, their bodies as close as it was possible to get without melting into each other. Then he slowly pulled her on top of him, their eyes locked as he held her above him, a moment more erotic than anything she’d ever experienced. Watching him as he watched her, his light blue eyes filled with wanting.

“Can you feel this, any of this?” she whispered.

“There’s something, like a shiver that runs through you. But believe me, I’m enjoying this every bit as much as you are.”

Then he took her hands, clasping her fingers, and she held on tightly as she moved for them both, rising, soaring, then finally tumbling back to earth.

As they lay there afterward, he asked, “Can you see a future for us?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger to her lips.

“Don’t answer that now.”

She’d sat up. “Why not?”

He didn’t speak, but she knew what was going on. Although she’d told him that she wanted to tell Ruth about them, because she was still uneasy about all she’d been holding back, he’d asked her not to yet. Despite her own certainty, she knew Colin still harbored doubts about her being able to commit. How could he not, after Gloryanne?

Lucy was hoping that by the time she returned from the convention, David would finally give in and she could be open about everything. Because she was also tortured by holding back about that.

Finally he said, “This time with you here, it’s been like…”

“A dream?”

He nodded.

“I know. It’s like this magical place apart from the rest of the world.”

“But there is a real world out there. And maybe yours is going to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hear the buzz in the store. And I’ve heard customers coming in and talking about how wonderful your book is.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe she didn’t get it. “Lucy, one day soon you may find a publisher knocking on your door, offering you a whole new world of possibilities.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” she laughed, but she could see he was serious. “If by some miracle that happened, none of this would change.”

Then he said that while she was gone he was going to talk to Gloryanne one more time and hopefully convince her that she needed to finally move on. She was still calling him, he said, and he felt bad for her, but he’d been up front with her for weeks now. Again, that little dagger of guilt jabbed at her. Like Ruth, Gloryanne had no idea about her and Colin.

“I think she still loves you.”

He looked at her quizzically. “You’ve heard that from Jenny, no doubt, or my mother. She doesn’t love me. She’s just confused and guilty. It’s time to let go.”

“Was she your first love?”

“The only one, really. Until now.”

“And if you hadn’t met me, do you think you’d be with her?”

He shook his head. “Why is it we always seem to be talking about me? What about you, have you let go?”

“I didn’t think I could ever get over losing Ben. And truthfully, I didn’t want to. As long as I was immersed in grieving, he was somehow still with me. It felt wrong to let it go. As if I were somehow letting
him
go.” She felt the familiar sorrow building in her throat. “But after a while, I learned that there’s a limit to how much grief you can endure. One day you wake up and you just want to be, no you
need
to be, normal, and have a day like everyone else. So you let it go for five minutes, then an hour. Gradually you let go of what you think you never could, until one day there are more normal stretches than grieving ones.”

Colin’s fingers had stroked her hair over and over as she talked, a soothing gesture, and she’d felt like a little girl whose bruises were fresh, as were her tears. She saw tears in his own eyes.

“Of course you understand all this,” she said, knowing that’s how he’d finally made peace with his own loss. “But there’s still the guilt, that one day I won’t think of him at all, for a day, or two days, and it’ll be as if he never existed. I see now that’s what held David and me together. And finally really opening up completely when I was there, about everything, enabled me to see that it was okay to let go.”

“It must have been painful, all that talking about such a sad time. I understand how he could have a hard time letting go.”

“It was painful, but…he’s doing better.”

David seemed to be making strides letting go of so many things, except for her. She’d e-mailed him several times, assuring him she wasn’t going to change her mind. He thought that deep down she was still angry and hurt, that it was only natural it would take time for her to trust him again. What he couldn’t understand, he kept writing, was why she was unwilling to just give it a little time.

“I think when you have a long history with someone, as you and I both had,” Colin said then, breaking into her thoughts, “it’s easy to just hang on. You get used to the familiar, you know? And I think that’s what’s going on with Gloryanne.”

He’d pulled her close, holding her for a long time, and she couldn’t help remembering what Ruth had said way back in the beginning when she was falling apart. That the Chinese word for crisis has two characters: danger and opportunity. Maybe you needed to face some kind of crisis to really open your eyes. If it hadn’t been for losing Ben, she might not have rediscovered her love for writing. While she’d have given up everything to keep Ben, there wasn’t a choice.

And if David hadn’t lied and betrayed her, she wouldn’t have found Colin. If he hadn’t been paralyzed, Colin would no doubt have been married to Gloryanne by now.

She’d pulled away from him in that moment and looked deep into his eyes, feeling that somehow, everything had turned out as it was supposed to, despite the agonies along the way. That was life.

* * *

THE MOMENT SHE PULLED INTO THE HOTEL PARKING LOT for the convention, Lucy’s nerves kicked into high gear. The lobby was crawling with people wearing name tags and she peered at them as she walked past, wheeling her huge suitcase stuffed with books. There were booksellers everywhere, but also well-known authors and publicists from some of the largest publishers in the world. They were clustered in groups, laughing and talking, and she suddenly felt like turning around and bolting.

This would be a hundred times worse than doing a book signing. She was walking into an inner sanctum of the publishing world, and to most of these people she’d be viewed as that most dreaded person—a self-published author. How was she going to go through with this? Simply walk up to people, introduce herself, and hand them her self-published book, along with her carefully crafted brochure? Suddenly that seemed like the most embarrassing thing in the world.

She checked in and headed to her room, passing the convention floor along the way. She stood there a moment, looking into the gargantuan room filled with tables and booths and stacks of books everywhere. In an hour she’d have to walk in there along with hundreds of others, and she almost laughed, picturing them all running in the other direction when they saw her. How she wished that Ruth was with her.

She went to her room on the twentieth floor, opened the drapes, then scanned the minibar. She grabbed a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s because she was shaking so badly. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she took the tiniest of sips, with deep breaths in between, trying to calm down. Praying she could work up the nerve to go back down to the convention floor. When she finished the bottle, a warm buzz pulsed through her. Then her hand flew to her mouth, realizing she probably reeked like whiskey. Great, now she’d be seen as a self-published pariah AND a lush.

She went in the bathroom and washed her face with cold water, rinsed with mouth wash, then looked in the mirror. If Ruth were beside her she’d no doubt say:
You can do this, Lucy. You can. Your book is wonderful.

And that’s how she managed to get into the elevator, carrying a tote bag filled with books and brochures, with Ruth’s voice echoing in her ear.
Your book is wonderful. Your book is wonderful. Your book is wonderful.

Whatever happened next, she told herself, she’d get through it. More than anything, she longed to go back to Colin. She hoped it went smoothly when he talked to Gloryanne, that she could move on without too much pain. She seemed like a nice woman, and Ruth seemed fond of her. But more than anything, Lucy couldn’t wait to go back and see Ruth again. She couldn’t wait to tell her that she was in love with her son.