Some evenings he and Olivia would sit at this table and page through books she’d plucked from the shelves on her way through the store. She usually selected books on nature, or medicine. Early in their relationship, she went through a phase of reading every book she could find on sex. Having denied any sexual thoughts or feelings for much of her life, she was unstoppable once she’d been set free. Sex with Olivia had been like teaching a child a new game—at first she’d been uncertain of her ability, but once the rules were mastered, she wanted to play it continually. And she’d played it very well indeed.

During the last few years of their marriage, though, the books she’d bring to the table were filled with the sobering, sometimes hopeful, sometimes disheartening information on infertility.

Paul ate the last bite of his cheesecake, letting it melt in his mouth as he studied the gold band on his finger. He had put it on just that morning, and although he had not worn it in many months, it comforted him to see it on his hand. He and Olivia would not have drifted away from each other if they’d been able to have a family. He’d felt cheated when he learned she was incapable of conceiving. He struggled not to let his feelings show. It was not in any way her fault, and her own disappointment was keen. He was nearing the point of pulling himself together from that blow when she announced she had received the job offer in the Outer Banks.

He was incredulous. He knew Annie lived in the Outer Banks with her husband and two children, and he was filled with an odd mixture of excitement and terror. He tried to talk Olivia out of taking the offer, but she returned from her interview raving about the uniqueness of the area and the quiet challenge of the position being offered to her. It’s too isolated, he said. Too far from his family and their friends. He knew in retrospect his argument had been weakly offered, that in truth, he was electrified by the idea of being close to Annie. As his fantasies grew of what it would be like, how he might see her, might just bump into her at the grocery store or on the beach, he withdrew further and further from Olivia. When he spoke to her at all it was with a sharp edge to his voice. He was angry with her for putting him in this situation.

Once the move was complete, he managed to wait all of a week before looking up O’Neill in the phone book. She was listed both at her home address and at her studio. He waited another day before driving past the studio, and one more before going in.

She’d been alone, adjusting a photograph on the far wall, and the look on her face when she turned to see him could not have been more horror-filled if he had walked in sporting two heads.

“Don’t panic,” he said quickly, holding up a hand to ward off anything she might say. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I’m married too. Happily. My wife is a physician at the emergency room in Kill Devil Hills.” He rambled on about Olivia, partly to fill the silence, partly to convince her he had no intention of being a threat to her or her marriage.

She flattened herself against the wall of photographs as she listened to him, her arms folded protectively across her chest. Her hands hugged her elbows so tightly that he could see the whiteness of her knuckles from where he stood on the other side of the room.

She looked extraordinary. A little heavier than the last time he’d seen her. Not overweight, but she had a woman’s body now. Still the same hair, though not quite so wild, and the red was softened by those occasional strands of silver. Her skin was as dewy and fair as it had been when he first met her.

When he finally paused for breath, she spoke. “You’ll have to tell her you can’t stay here,” she said. “It won’t work, Paul. Please. It would be impossible for you to live here without us constantly bumping into each other.”

Her words only served to encourage his fantasy. Why would she care where he lived if she didn’t fear being tempted by him?

“I didn’t want to move here, believe me,” he said. “I tried to talk Olivia out of taking the job, but she was sold on it.”

“Does she know about me?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t even know about the summer I lived here. I started to tell her about you once, long ago, but Olivia’s one of those people who wants to leave the past in the past.” Olivia’s own past had been so weighty, so painful, that it had absorbed nearly all their energy in the early days of their relationship. He’d had to undo all that had been done to her, and after that she wanted to put the past behind her. She knew only that he’d had a very serious relationship long before he met her. She wanted to know no more than that.

He walked to the back wall of the studio to study the breathtaking stained glass. “Your work is beautiful, Annie. You’ve come a long way.”

“I’ve changed, Paul,” she said. “I’m not the woman you used to know. Please don’t have any illusions that you and I can have a relationship again.”

“Just friendship.”

“No. It’s impossible.” She lowered her voice, and he knew someone else must be in the studio. “There was too much between us for us to simply be friends.”

He was close enough to her now to see fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He wanted to see her laugh, to hear her ringing giggle bounce off the glass.

“I’m working for the Gazette,” he said, “and freelancing. I’d like to do an article on you for Seascape Magazine.”

“No.”

“I’ve already spoken to the editor about it. Please, Annie. It would help me get my name known here.”

He started as a door creaked open behind him, and he turned to see a large, ponytailed man walk into the room from what must have been a darkroom. Annie stepped toward him. “Tom,” she said. “This is Paul Macelli. He’s a journalist who wants to do a story on me in Seascape.”

“Hello,” Paul said as he shook Tom’s hand. He would play her game. He would act as though they were strangers to one another if that was what she wanted.

“Well, you couldn’t pick a better person to write about,” Tom said. “She’s a real Jill-of-all-trades. Anything going on in the community, she’s a part of it, and you can see for yourself what a talented artist she is.” He talked on, telling him little details about her work that Paul began jotting down in a notebook, while Annie lowered herself behind the work table, looking up at both of them, her eyes resigned and unsmiling.

The interviews began. He let her talk about her son and daughter, about Alec. Those meetings fed the roots of his obsession. He sent the Seascape photographer to her studio and demanded he take dozens of pictures, far more than Paul would ever need for the article, so that he could keep them for himself. He could pretend the smile she showed the camera was meant for him, because he was seeing so little of it in real life. She wanted him again; he was certain of it. There was no other reason why she should be afraid of his being nearby. She had to want him.

He had no friends. A growing number of acquaintances, but no one to confide in, and he was bursting to talk. And there was Olivia, ready to listen.

Olivia. How had she tolerated him all those weeks, those months, when he was wrapped up in Annie, when he spoke of nothing else?

It had been a terrible sickness in him. From this distance he could see it for what it was: a pathetic obsession that was costing him his sleep, his self-respect, his marriage. A few days earlier, Gabe had called him at the hotel to tell him about the Gazette article in which Jonathan Cramer accused Olivia of mishandling Annie’s case. He’d thought about it all night and he knew Cramer was wrong. He only had to think back to the wreck of the Eastern Spirit to know how wrong he was. He would trust Olivia with his own life, with the lives of anyone he loved. Annie had stood a better chance of survival under Olivia’s care than she would have with any other physician in the state. He could see that now, from this distance, as surely as he could feel Olivia’s presence in this bookstore. He had been satisfied during those years he and Olivia lived up here. With Olivia, he had finally been a man in control of himself and his demons, and he’d been grateful to her for freeing him from his obsession.

For her trouble he’d repaid her with pain, with coldness, with cruelty. Now she was handling harassment by the paper he worked for, as though he was still hurting her even when he was not physically there.

He looked at his watch. She would still be up by the time he got back to the hotel if he left right now. He paid the bill and hurried out into the hot night air.



CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


The phone rang at ten-thirty-five. Olivia was lathering her hair in the shower, and she stepped out quickly, drawing a towel around her as she raced into the bedroom to answer it before the machine picked it up.

It was Paul’s voice, not Alec’s, that greeted her, and for a split second, she was disappointed.

“Are you back?” she asked.

“No. I’m in a hotel in D.C. I’ll get back tomorrow.” He sounded tired. A little tense.

“How are you?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment. Then she heard a slight laugh, or maybe a cough. “Physically, I’m fine. Emotionally, I’m coming to grips with the fact that I’ve been out of my mind.”

The shampoo was beginning to drizzle down Olivia’s back. “What are you talking about?” She stretched the phone cord down the hall to the linen closet, where she pulled out a towel and draped it around her neck.

“I talked to Gabe at the Gazette and he told me about the flak on Annie’s case. I’m sorry, Olivia. I didn’t think the Gazette was capable of yellow journalism. Maybe if I’d been there I could have prevented it somehow.”