His chair sc.r.a.ped the floor as he moved closer to the table.

"Nora," he continued, taking her hand again. He fiddled with her fingers, choosing his words, before bringing it to his lips. "I have to ask you to trust me a little further. I need to go away."

She sucked in her breath, but he held her hand firm. "Again? Now? After tonight?"

"I know what you're thinking, and stop it," he admonished, tapping her hand. "There's something I need to take care of." He gave her hand a rea.s.suring squeeze. "I'll be back in two days."

"Oh, C.W.," she moaned. She turned her head, not able to hide her disappointment behind her hand. "Promise?"

"I promise. I couldn't keep away from you for more than two days."

Nora tried to smile, but it turned out to be more of a lopsided frown. "You know where to find me."

"Come on," he said, taking her hand with a wink of devilment. "Give me a good-bye kiss that will last me."

It was almost dawn and Nora was still wrestling with her sheets. Thoughts of C.W.'s leaving had teased her all through the night, creating nightmares of abandonment and heartbreak. Turning on her side, she again ran her hand along his chest, its steady rise and fall allaying her fears. Memories of their lovemaking stirred. She had kissed him here, she thought, tracing the path with her fingertip to his still lips. And here...here... Her finger stopped and her eyes continued the path down the sheets. And there, she recalled.

How many nights had she reached out for her husband, eager to please him, her own desire prodding her courage? And how many ways had he rejected her? A turned back, a vicious remark, a swagger out of the room. Nora's hand slipped under her cheek. This man wasn't Mike, she reminded herself.

She listened in the dark to the sonorous sound of his snores. When she could lie in bed no longer, Nora sat up and glanced at the alarm clock. The hour glowed green in the early morning darkness: 5:05. Nora had a flash of inspiration.

She crept from her bed, carefully covering her sleeping lover, and grabbed her robe. Her bare feet skipped across the cold floor as she tied her robe, rolled up the sleeves, and tugged on heavy wool socks. Until this morning, she had deliberately remained in bed until after C.W. had showered, shaved, breakfasted, and left. But today, she'd surprise him.

In the kitchen, instead of the usual welcoming aroma of fresh coffee, the air held the stale smell of cold ashes. It occurred to Nora that she had taken for granted all of C.W.'s thoughtfulness. The thought of preparing a meal for him, of warming the room for him, of showing in little, everyday ways that she cared, warmed her more than any fire could.

Nora measured the freshly ground coffee into the pot, then worked to the cheery tempo of the percolator. Soon, the smell of ashes was overpowered by the fresh smell of hot coffee. Next, she lit a fire, humming as she did so. Then with practiced efficiency, she pulled out the bowls, bins of flour and yeast she would need for baking bread.

She felt better the moment her hands were in the dough. This one skill brought Nora back to her roots more than any genealogical chart ever could. While she kneaded, memories of her childhood, of hours spent in the kitchen with Oma, drifted back.

Baking was in her blood; there had been bakers in the Koehler family for generations. Her grandfather took his family to America, setting up a bakery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father, Franz, carried on the tradition, and the name Koehler came to stand for quality bread and pastries in that Germanic city.

As the bakery expanded, Nora's care shifted from her mother to her grandmother. Oma was distraught to see her family recipes replaced by cost-effective, inferior ones. So she baked for her granddaughter, teaching her the family secrets, instilling in her a love and respect for the art of baking. She also taught Nora about perseverance, patience, and consistency.

"Life is like dis bread dough," she would tell Nora as she took a bowl full of risen dough from the oven. "Mit bubbles like a balloon, yah?

"But liebchen. Life is not alvays full of bubbles. Sometimes somezing vill crash down like dis." With that, Oma thrust a powerful punch into the dough. It collapsed around her fist. "But not to vorry," Oma said with a wink, reshaping the dough into formed loaves. "If you take ze time to vork mit ze problem, reshape things a bit, and give it a tincture of time-" she put the loaves into greased baking tins and set them back into the warm oven "-ze bubbles, they vill rise again and in ze end, you have somezing to be proud of.

"Life, it can be simple, if you do vat you believe is right."

Nora hadn't listened. At twenty-one, Nora had met Michael MacKenzie-and he was everything her mother had ever dreamed of. Young MacKenzie was smart, driven, and poised for financial success. And at thirty-two, he needed a wife.

Nora still could feel the rush Mike gave her when he swept her up in his brawling arms and told her he wanted her to be his wife, the matriarch of his empire. He had called her "good breeding stock." Back then, she had laughed. Now, as she remembered his words, Nora's hands squeezed the dough till it oozed through her fingers.

"Ach, he is a swinehund, zat one," Oma had warned when Nora announced her engagement. Oma had reached out to touch her face with fingers worn thin from years of kneading bread and braiding her long, yellow locks. "This one vill punch down your bubbles. And liebchen, from zat kind of punch, it vill be hard to rise."

Why didn't I listen? thought Nora as she wiped away a tear with her elbow. She had loved Mike, sure, in a youthful pa.s.sion. In retrospect, she realized she was wooed by his promise of security more than she was by him. How could she have been so naive?

Nora's still hands rested on the formed loaves of dough. Father, Mother, and Oma too-they were all gone now. She had only herself to listen to.

"What's going on in here?"

Startled, Nora turned to greet C.W. and stopped short of laughing. His hair was tousled and his cheeks bore bristle. Under his eyes, the dark circles attested to his not having slept as peacefully as she thought.

When C.W. saw her standing at the counter, with an ap.r.o.n and a smile, he didn't speak. He simply stood in the doorway with a look of sleepy stupor.

"Breakfast is almost ready," she called, sliding the loaves in the oven. "I thought you'd want a good meal before your trip."

He walked around the kitchen, absently drumming his fingers near the percolator, over the wood stove, upon the neatly set table. "Are you always this domestic?"

Nora laughed and carried him a mug of coffee. "I haven't been. But I'd like to be."

"Busy and warm, wasn't that it?"

"Like Oma's kitchen. You remembered."

"It's an image I've kept pocketed away." His eyes were glowing over the rim of his coffee cup as he watched her wash dishes in the sink. "Are you really happy here? Living this life? Are you sure you don't miss New York?"

Nora's hands stilled and she looked out the kitchen window. The sky was pink over the eastern mountain range, a mist hung low in the valley, and she heard the bleating of her sheep in the distance. She thought again of Oma's words. Life could not be more simple, nor did it ever feel more right.

"I'm happy here," she replied.

He reached for her but the telephone ring cut him short.

"Who could that be at six o'clock in the morning?" she asked. The memory of Mike on the phone at all hours during his last months rushed by. "Phones are bad news," she muttered as she swung around and answered. She immediately recognized the nasal voice of her auctioneer in New York.

"Walton! Is everything all right?"

With a wave of his hand, C.W. headed to the bathroom. "I know it's early," Walton went on, "but I thought you farmers rose with the sun anyway. Have you seen the Times?"

"I'm in Vermont, remember? What's so exciting?"

"The advance notices for your auction are out."

She paled and held the phone tight. "Already? What does it say?"

He read the short column, emphasizing adjectives and adverbs with a flourish. The article was brief, and to her relief, there was no mention of her financial status. Yet, the news was bittersweet. Pleased as she was at the rave reviews, hearing the description of her furniture, her jewelry, her private art collection was painful. So public. So much of herself was going up on the block.

"They're touting it as the biggest sale since Warhol." He cleared his throat. "It should bring in a fortune."

It better, she thought. From the walls Nora heard the distinct squeak and thud of the shower turning off. "I'd appreciate it if you'd clip that and mail it up to me."

"Why mail them? Aren't you coming to the auction next week?" Walton's disappointment rang across the wire.

Nora hesitated. Perhaps she should make a showing, to boost the sales. While she was considering this, C.W. walked into the room, rubbing his dripping hair with a towel. Nora remembered the first time she saw him. Smiling, she held out her hand to him.

"No," she replied to Walton. "I'm not going to New York. My duty lies here."

After a couple of bites of bread, several gulps of Nora's dark coffee, and a few comments from C.W. on how his hair would stand on end that day, they were off for a quick walk before C.W. left. Like two scouts out on a hike, they marched in synchronized rhythm across the gravel drive and down the mountain. When they reached Mike's Bench, C.W. halted, then led Nora toward it.

The bench could hardly be approached through the foliage and a thick blanket of colored leaves almost obscured the bench from view. Nora made her way to the marble and brushed away the leaves. The mud streaked across the marble's whiteness, lending it the appearance of a gravestone upon which was carved an epitaph for a season past. The ghost of the man who carved the bench rose and touched their thoughts.

"He must have loved this place to create something so beautiful, so personal," said C.W. He spoke in reverential tones, as though he stood at MacKenzie's gravesite.

Nora didn't respond for a moment. "I suppose he did love it. It was probably the only nonprofit-motivated, noncorporate thing I've ever seen him do."

"I find that difficult to believe," C.W. said. "There's too much of the man here: the design of the house, the bench." He shook his head.

Nora languished in her memories. Happier times with Mike in the early years of their marriage crossed her angry barrier and demanded to be recognized. Days full of poring over blueprints, walks along their border, and dunks in the icy water of the pond. Nights camping out in a tent, huddling against the cold and the strange noises, and counting dreams as numerous as the stars over their heads. Mike had so many dreams.

"He did love it here once," she conceded. "We both did." With a brash movement, she sc.r.a.ped away the M she had traced in the mud.

"Then it all changed. With success came an edge so sharp that he left bleeding all who ventured a touch. After a while, I didn't know who he was anymore. And he didn't care who I was."

"You speak of MacKenzie, your husband, so rarely. Was he always cruel?"

"No. He was, in the beginning, quite thoughtful."

"Did he ever physically harm you, in any way?"

"Not physically. Only verbally. In that he excelled."

"Did you share many interests? Your art? Love of nature?"

"My art interested him, especially at first. Then it bored him. Or perhaps not only my art bored him."

"I suppose he was cheap, penurious. Forgot your birthday, that kind of thing?"

"He was methodically generous. At first I was overwhelmed by the size and perfection of the jewels he gave me. Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries...all marked by a significant gift. I never like to wear large jewels. I am too small boned and feel uncomfortable in them. On occasion, Mike insisted. Later, as I grew more knowledgeable, I came to understand that the larger stones were investments. He gave his lady friends the smaller, cheaper, cl.u.s.tered stones. I, however, was the investment."

Nora grew irritated. "I really don't want to talk about Mike anymore. Not this morning."

C.W. was haunted by a real, human Michael MacKenzie. "He must have loved this place," he repeated. "He must have loved you."

"No! I don't believe he ever really loved me."

"Nora, did you love him?"

She paused, knowing he waited on a personal precipice for her answer. "I thought I loved him. Once. But that was a different me. I didn't know what love was. Until now."

He took her in his arms and crushed her against his chest. She sensed in him an urgency she didn't understand.

"C.W.," she said as her head lay against his shoulder, "Mike is gone. I am only beginning to accept that it was his decision to end his life, not mine, or anyone else's."

C.W.'s tension eased and he released a long sigh.

"Nora," he said, taking her hands and holding them tightly, "while I'm gone, come back here. To this spot. Remember Mike, the good and the bad, and put his memory to rest. There's no room for his ghost between us."

Nora leaned back in his arms to meet his gaze. "I'll try," she whispered. "I promise I'll try. Promise me, too, that wherever you're going today, you'll put your ghosts behind you too."

He hugged her to him, hard and suddenly, as though he was afraid of losing her. "I'll try, Nora. G.o.d knows, I'll try."

26.

C.W.'S HAND BEAT the steering wheel to the tempo of the song. Why couldn't this Jeep go faster? His foot pushed the pedal to the metal, but the battered car wouldn't go more than fifty-five miles per hour. When he thought of the Ferrari in his garage in New York, he ground his teeth in frustration. Then laughed. He could see himself trying to explain to Nora how a farmhand could afford a Ferrari.

Nora. Her eyes stared at him through the windshield: soft and dreamy after his kiss. Frightened yet determined when faced with a bill. Hard and vengeful at the name of Charles Blair. Ah, but she would be a vengeful angel.

His hands tightened on the wheel. His deception was be coming a nightmare. He rubbed his eyes and grabbed for his coffee as the miles stretched out ahead. So far to go.

He had asked for her trust rather than appeal to her innate kindness. Was it the better course, or was he nothing but a coward? Trust me, he had asked. Yet, for her to do so, he had to watch her suffer in her financial debt. What kind of fate would set him up in a position of champion, when honesty would destroy any hope for their relationship?

Michael MacKenzie's ghost would be put to rest, he vowed. Nora would have to bury his memory in her own time. She was well on her way. And with the settling of MacKenzie's accounts, he would, at last, bury the ghost as well.

"Then, MacKenzie," he swore aloud, "leave us. And let the living live."

C.W.'s jaw set and he cranked his window flat down. He rested his elbow on the door and ran his hand through his hair. The sun was getting higher and burning off the fog along the valley roads. As he drove past the craggy horizon in his battered Jeep, his lone shadow etched across the mountain.

C.W. made it to New York in time for his appointment. The hotel room was adequate. A bed, two chairs, and a table. Not like his apartment-but it was beyond curious eyes. He flicked on the TV, flicked it off again, then stood before the window overlooking the traffic and congestion of the west fifties. Horns blared and the people traveled in packs as the lights changed from red to green. He stared at the throngs without emotion. A lifetime he'd spent in this city, yet today he felt like a stranger.

A knock sounded on the door and he straightened his tie. It was time for business.

"Good afternoon, Henry," he said as he opened the door. He did not extend his hand. "So good of you to come."

"Good to see you again, Charles."

C.W. watched his once trusted ally cross the room as he carefully laid down his briefcase and, without a pause for gossip, took out his papers. His movements were those of the efficient executive getting down to business. His face was impa.s.sive. Nothing Strauss did or said gave the impression he had anything to fear.

"Here are the reports on the twelve businesses you requested," Strauss said, straightening. "As you suspected, they were all lent large loans from our bank." He coughed. "From you, actually. They all defaulted on the loans, and-" he slowly turned his head "-they were all fronts for MacKenzie. How did you know?"

C.W. c.o.c.ked his head. Henry was here to learn, for certain, if he had MacKenzie's ledger, he thought. C.W. walked over to the small table and took a seat across from Henry.

"I wasn't sure," he replied evenly. "I've been thinking about this for some time. Putting two and two together. I followed a hunch. As you know, I've long been the Captain Ahab to MacKenzie's whale."

Henry's eyelids fell to half-mast and he nodded slowly. He was buying it, as C.W. knew he would, because he wanted to buy it.

After briefly scanning the summaries, C.W. leaned back and, bringing his fingers together under his chin, asked, "You realize what this means?"

"You'll be forced out."

"And most likely you as well."