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Noah crossed the room to shake hands with his father-in-law, then rejoined Maris on the love seat and placed his arm around her as she handed him a highball glass. “Cheers.” After taking a sip of his drink, he said, “Maxine sent me in with the message that dinner is in ten minutes.”
“I hope her pot roast isn’t as dry as it was last time,” Daniel grumbled.
“Her pot roast is never dry,” Maris said, wondering how they could be discussing something as trivial as pot roast when only moments ago the topic had been a man’s inexplicable suicide.
“Dry or not, I’m going to wreak havoc on it,” Noah said. “I’m starving.”
Of course, one event probably has nothing to do with the other.
She clung to her father’s statement, desperate to believe it.
This was Noah they were talking about. Her husband. The man she had fallen in love with, and the man she still loved. Noah. The man she slept beside every night. The man with whom she wanted to have children.
She placed her hand on his thigh, and he, without even a pause in his conversation with Daniel, covered her hand with his own and pressed it affectionately. It was an absentminded, husbandly, and reassuring gesture.
* * *
Dinner was delicious and the pot roast lived up to Maxine’s standards of excellence. But by the time the lemon tarts were served, Daniel was yawning. As soon as Maxine removed the dessert dishes, he asked to be excused.
“Stay and enjoy another cup of coffee,” he told his guests as he stood up. “But I should retire. I’ll be up early to attend Howard’s funeral. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“I need to say good night, too, Dad. Today was long and strenuous.”
As they left the dining room, Maris held back and detained Noah. Laying her hands on his lapels, she went up on tiptoe to kissed him tenderly on the lips. “I think I’ll go home ahead of you.”
He placed his hands at her waist and drew her closer. “I thought you and I had plans for later this evening.”
“We do. But I’m about to ask a favor. Would you please stay and help Dad get to bed? I know it’s not your place—”
“I don’t mind at all.”
“He’s prickly on the subject of his instability, and it’s already come up once tonight. But if you invent an excuse to walk upstairs with him, it won’t appear that you’re escorting him. I would appreciate it.”
“Consider it done, sweetheart. I’ll follow your lead.”
At the door, she pretended to remember that she wanted to retrieve an old address book from her third-floor bedroom. “I’ll have to look for it. I’m not sure where I left it.”
Noah offered to get it for her and suggested that she go ahead of him while he searched. She wasn’t sure Daniel believed their playacting, but he went along with it.
When they said their good nights, Daniel hugged her tightly. Then he set her away from him and peered closely into her eyes as though trying to decipher the troubling thoughts behind them. “I want to hear more about this new book and the complex man who’s writing it.”
The reminder of how she’d gone on and on about Parker brought color to her cheeks again. “I always value your input, Dad. I’ll have a copy of the manuscript sent over by courier tomorrow. We’ll get together later in the week to discuss it.”
He squeezed her hand with a confidentiality and caring that made her want to crawl up into his lap as she had when she was little, seeking comfort and assurance that everything was going to be fine, that all her concerns were needless, and that there was no basis for her undefined disquiet.
But, of course, she couldn’t. She’d outgrown his lap, and her confidences were a woman’s, not a child’s. They couldn’t be shared with her father.
Daniel moved aside and Noah stepped up to hug her. “Daniel’s looking a little down in the mouth tonight,” he whispered. “Once he’s tucked in, I think I’ll offer to have a bedtime brandy with him.”
“Do. But make it a short one. I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
Maris didn’t go straight home. She had never intended to. Using her father as a pawn to delay Noah made her feel guilty, but only a little. She would never have deceived them if she weren’t desperate to rid herself of nagging doubts that had taken a tenacious hold on her.
She took a taxi downtown to the apartment in Chelsea. By the time she reached the door of the apartment, her heart was beating hard, and not because of the steep staircase. She was anxious about what she might find inside.
She unlocked the door with the key she’d had in her possession since the night of her surprise party and, remembering where the light switch was, flipped it on. The air-conditioning unit was humming softly, but otherwise the apartment was silent. She noted that the cushions on the sofa looked freshly plumped.
