“I feel a little strange about that,” he admitted, looking at her. He wanted to look at her forever. He wanted to study her until he knew everything there was to know. Then he realized he was staring and dropped his gaze. “I didn’t want to be with a lot of people I didn’t know. I didn’t want to be with a lot of people, period. In a strange house, at Christmas. I thought I would go looking for…” He trailed off, glancing up at her. “I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know why I said I wouldn’t come earlier. Well, I do, but it’s hard to explain. It’s … it’s complicated.”
She seemed unconcerned. “You don’t have to explain anything to me,” she said.
He nodded and went back to eating. Outside, the wind gusted about the corners and across the eaves of the old house, making strange, whining sounds. Snow blew past the frost-edged windows as if the storm were a reel of film spinning out of control. Ross looked at it and felt time and possibility slipping away.
When he finished his meal, Josie carried their plates to the sink and brought hot tea. They sipped at the tea in silence, listening to the wind, exchanging quick looks that brushed momentarily and slid away.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he said finally, setting down the tea and looking at her.
She nodded, sipping slowly.
“It’s true. I didn’t write or call, and I was sometimes a long way away from here and lost in some very dark places, but I never stopped.”
He kept his eyes fixed on hers, willing her to believe. She set her cup down, fitting it carefully to the saucer.
“John,” she said. “You’re just here for tonight, aren’t you? You haven’t come back to Hopewell to stay. You don’t plan to ask me to marry you or go away with you or wait for you to come back again. You aren’t going to promise me anything beyond the next few hours.”
He stared at her, taken aback by her directness. He felt the emptiness and solitude begin to return. “No,” he admitted.
She smiled gently. “Because I’d like to think that the one thing we can count on from each other after all this time is honesty. I’m not asking for anything more. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
She leaned forward slightly. “I’ll take those few hours, John. I’ll take them gladly. I would have taken them anytime during the last fifteen years of my life. I thought about you, too. Every day, I thought about you. I prayed for you to come back. At first, I wanted you to come back forever. Then, just for a few years, or a few months, or days, minutes, anything. I couldn’t help myself. I can’t help myself now. I want you so badly, it hurts.”
She brushed nervously at her tousled hair. “So let’s not spend time offering each other explanations or excuses. Let’s not make any promises. Let’s not even talk anymore.”
She rose and came around to stand over him, then bent to kiss him on the mouth. She kept her lips on his, tasting him, exploring gently, her arms coming around his shoulders, her fingers working themselves deep into his hair. She kissed him for a long time, and then she pulled him to his feet.
“I guess you remember I was a bold kind of girl,” she whispered, her face only inches from his own, her arms around his neck, and her body pressed against him. “I haven’t changed. Let’s go upstairs. I bet you remember the way.”
As it turned out, he did.
CHAPTER 19
Bennett Scott stayed at the Heppler party almost two full hours before making her break, even though she had known before coming what she intended to do. She played with Harper and Little John, to the extent that playing with Little John was possible—such a weird little kid—and helped a couple of butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths teenage girls supervise the other children in their basement retreat. She visited with the adults—a boring, mind-numbing bunch except for Robert Heppler, who was still a kick—and admired the Christmas decorations. She endured the looks they gave her, the ones that took in her piercings and tattoos and sometimes the needle tracks on her arms, the ones that pitied her or dismissed her as trash. She ate a plate of food from the buffet and managed to sneak a few of the chicken wings and rolls into her purse in the process, knowing she might not get much else to eat for a while. She made a point of being seen and looking happy, so that no one, Nest in particular, would suspect what she was about. She hung in there for as long as she could, and much longer than she had believed possible, and then got out of there when no one was looking.