It was early, very early in the morning. Margo lay in the big bed she had shared with Jack, flicking through channels looking for something, anything that would make her fall asleep. She’d caught up on news, both national and local. She’d watched a show on how to get washboard abs, which she was quite sure she did not care to have. She had even learned that if she sent for a kit and followed seven easy steps, she could make a killing in real estate.
Still no sleep.
She should have been unable to stay awake rather than unable to sleep. Weren’t pregnant women supposed to be sleepy all the time? Plus yesterday had been the most exhausting day Margo could ever remember. It wasn’t just the trip to Washington or the meeting with the private investigator. It wasn’t even that long meeting with her team last night. What she was grappling with was her judgment or lack thereof.
How could she have been so wrong about Jack? Still wrong about him? Because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, she believed he loved her. She certainly loved him.
‘Who are you, Jack McCarthy? Who are you?’
She thought about the new life growing inside her. Jack’s child, their child. How he had longed for a family. His parents were long dead and Marcus had been all he’d had before Margo. Now Marcus was gone, too. If only she could reach Jack somehow, let him know that the baby they had longed for was on the way. She knew it would make a difference.
She concentrated on him with all her might, hoping that by some miracle, her love would travel through space and time to reach him.
‘Jack,’ she whispered into the empty night. ‘Come home. We’re going to have a baby.’
Jack’s eyes flew open. ‘Margo?!’ he said, certain he had heard her voice. He sat up in the ancient bed, heart racing, eyes searching every corner of the room.
She wasn’t there, of course.
Was he losing it? He had heard her. He was sure of it. She had said his name. He would have called it a dream had he been asleep. But the ‘Iceman’, as Marcus always called him, the man who could nod off like a baby on the eve of even the most dangerous mission, had been tossing and turning for hours, longing for but never attaining sleep.
Jack sat on the edge of his bed and absently watched the motel’s neon vacancy sign flash outside his window. It seemed to be begging someone to come in, take shelter, find rest. Maybe find love. But no one had come to the sad little motel. And no one had come to Jack.
It was just his mind playing games. His Margo. His glorious, brilliant, sensuous Margo would have to remain a memory that came to tantalize him in the night.
But he could live with that. Or die with it. He didn’t much care what happened to him any more as long as she didn’t come looking for him. As long as she was safe. That was worth any hell he would have to endure.
‘Margo,’ he whispered into the blackness around him. ‘I will love you forever.’
Margo slipped out of her bed, their bed, the place their love had created a new life. She put on a cosy robe and headed for the library. She took the photograph of young Jack and Marcus with her to the window seat.
She couldn’t look at it right away. Instead she watched the great blocks of ice moving down Lake Michigan. The ice seemed to be devouring the lake, turning that usually beautiful stretch of water into something bleak and forbidding.
Margo shivered. She felt like ice was moving into her heart as well, freezing out the passion and the warmth of her love affair with Jack.
‘No!’ she said to the icy water. ‘I will not harden my heart. I will never be sorry I fell in love with you, Jack McCarthy. I will take care of our child until you are able to come back to me. And I will love you for ever and ever.’
Jack lay back in the bed feeling suddenly as if the pain was leaving his heart. He didn’t know why it was happening but he didn’t question it. Instead, he closed his eyes and pictured Margo lying naked and warm next to him. Filled with love for his wife, Jack fell into a gentle sleep.