Gail Bowen - The Endless Knot

Zack stirred in his sleep. “Am I about to get lucky?” he murmured.

I shifted my position and felt his erection. “I think we both are,” I said.

Our lovemaking was unhurried and incredibly sweet, and after the great headlong rush we luxuriated in the novelty of drifting off, side by side, hands touching, separate but still connected.

I slept deeply, and when Willie nuzzled me awake to take him for his walk, the pattern of light and shadows in the room jolted me with its unfamiliarity. Then I turned my head, saw my beloved, and my pulse slowed. I was exactly where I belonged. Reassured, I slid out of bed, pulled on my sweatshirt and jeans, tied my runners, and Willie and I hit the road.

Lawyers’ Bay is a horseshoe, and Willie and I had run along its beach for an entire summer. In July and August the lake had been alive with the sounds of shorebirds squawking, motorboats roaring, and kids shrieking as they leapt off the high board of the diving tower, but that morning we ran in a silent world. By the time we doubled back, the haunting half-light of dawn filled the sky, and the series of Inukshuk that Taylor, Isobel, and their friend, Gracie Falconer, had painstakingly built along the shoreline were emerging: eerily human, ghostly figures pointing our way home in grey morning light.

When I got back to the cottage, I checked on Taylor and Isobel. They were sleeping the sleep of young women who had eaten pizza, watched DVDS, and giggled far into the night. In our room, Zack, who slept five hours a night whether he needed it or not, was propped up in bed, peering through his glasses at the contents of a file folder. When he saw me he placed his file on the nightstand and motioned me over. “Did you two have a good run?”

“We did,” I said, bending to kiss him.

He shuddered. “Cold lips.”

“Cold everything,” I said. “It’s chilly out there.”

Zack held up the covers. “Then get in here with me.” I took off my jeans and slid in close.

“Better?”

“Much,” I said.

Zack rubbed my shoulders. “Do you know what I want to do?” he asked.

I groaned. “If it involves a feat of athleticism, you’re going to have to give me time to catch my breath.”

“No heroics required,” Zack said. “I want to keep doing what we just did. I want to go to bed with you at night, fool around with you in the middle of the night, and wake up with you in the morning.”

“I want that too,” I said.

“Good, because I’ve started looking for a house for us – an accessible house where I can trail around after you to my heart’s content.”

“You want us to move in together?”

“I want us to get married.”

“We’ve only known each other three months.”

His eyes were searching. “You’re not sure about us.”

I met his gaze. “I’m sure,” I said. “I’m just not ready.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “So I’ll keep looking for a house and when you’re ready, we’ll get married and move in.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Life is simple. You decide what you want and you go for it.”

“Right now, I want to eat.”

He chuckled. “Go for it.”

I made coffee and porridge, and we took our breakfast into the sunroom so we could watch morning come to the lake. Peter and Greg were down at the dock putting fishing gear into the boat, shrugging on their life jackets.

“Charlie isn’t going fishing?” Zack asked.

“No, and it’s probably just as well. He sets Greg’s teeth on edge.”

“Bad chemistry?” Zack said.

“Bad chemistry exacerbated by bad timing,” I said. “Mieka’s going through a rough patch in her life.”

“I wondered about that. There were times this summer when she had that five-mile stare. So what’s the problem?”

“Do you remember that Peggy Lee song ‘Is That All There Is?’ ”

“Sure.” Zack sang a few bars in the boozy bass of a lounge singer.

I shook my head. “Is there no end to your talents?”

“Give me fifty years and I’ll show you.”

“In fifty years, I’ll be a hundred and six.”

“And I’ll still be crazy about you. But we were talking about Mieka.”

“Right,” I said. “Lately I’ve had the sense she feels the walls are closing in on her. She and Greg have been married since she was twenty-one, and she’s been running her business since she was nineteen. Catering’s not easy – the hours are unpredictable and customers can be fractious. Mieka loves the girls, but according to Greg the business is really taking off, and the company needs to expand. It would be a major commitment for them, and I think Mieka’s wondering if it’s a commitment she wants to make.”

“And while Mieka’s wondering, along comes Charlie.” Zack sprinkled brown sugar on his porridge. “Is it a romance?”

“I don’t think so, but in a way that would be easier to handle. Mieka’s relationship with Charlie goes deeper than sex. When they were kids, she and Pete and Charlie did that blood kin thing – you know, where each kid cuts his finger and they let their blood flow together. I’m sure most children forget all about it, but with those three it seemed to take. They share a history, and last night Charlie was using that history to shut Greg out.”

“Do you want me to see if I can get Charlie to open up?” Zack asked.

“How well do you know him, anyway?”

Zack averted his eyes. “Well enough.”

“It would be good to know how Charlie sees the situation,” I said. “But don’t use your brass knuckles. I have a soft spot for Charlie. You should too. Last night he told me about the interview he did with Glenda just after Sam Parker was arrested.”

“We have a tape of it at the office,” Zack said. “It got Sam a lot of good press at the beginning. Very helpful.”

“That’s because before the take aired, Charlie did a little editing.”

Zack’s spoon stopped in mid-air. “He never mentioned that. What did he take out?”

“According to Charlie, at the end of the interview, Glenda said, ‘I would have killed for him too.’ ”

Zack winced. “Jesus. People are full of surprises, aren’t they? That line of Glenda’s would have made Charlie’s show front-page news.”

“Maybe Charlie knows there’s more to life than ratings,” I said.

“You think he identifies with Glenda?”

“I know he does,” I said. “They’d both had painful childhoods. They were both in the process of making lives for themselves, and they were both betrayed and publicly humiliated.”

Zack sipped his coffee meditatively. “Still, the decision to edit that line could have gone either way. Thank God, Charlie did the right thing.”

“Thank Charlie’s mother too,” I said. “In all the years I knew her, Marnie never knowingly caused another person pain. She had a truly generous spirit – not a moralizing bone in her body.”

“Glenda’s mother, Beverly, is cut from more rigid cloth,” Zack said dryly.

“You’ve met her, then.”

“Sure. She’s the one who hired me. I had to go to Calgary so she could check out the cut of my jib.”

“She interviewed you?”

Zack frowned at the memory. “Not exactly. She tried to convert me.”

“What did you do?”

“I told her my billable rate was $600 an hour, and she was on the clock. It didn’t stop her. She’s a True Believer.”

“She believes in The Rapture,” I said. “I read about it when I was doing research for my book. Legions of the Antichrist on the march. A final showdown in Armageddon. The Second Coming. And of course, the grand finale when the True Believers ascend into heaven, sit on God’s right hand, and watch their enemies suffer the horrors of the damned.”