26

 

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 loomed on the horizon, every faction of the entertainment industry was working hard to get a fresh new slant on the story, Matt's newspaper was no exception. Even before he sat down in Liam's office, he had a pretty good idea why he'd been summoned.

Liam propped his red high-top Converse shoes on the corner of his desk and leaned back so far in his chair, Matt wondered what kept it from toppling backward.

"So how fast can you make arrangements for the twins and hop a train to New York?"

"Why don't we skip all the bush-beating and get to the point. When do you need me up there?"

"By Monday."

Matt glanced at the three-by-five calendar behind his boss's desk, where fat black scribbles noted story headlines, bylines, and deadlines. It shouldn't have surprised him, seeing his initials in the middle of five connecting boxes, but it did. "You're kidding, right? The anniversary celebrations don't get under way for weeks, yet."

"Hey, you oughta know by know that this old buzzard lives by the 'early bird gets the worm' philosophy." He leaned forward and propped both forearms on his desk. "I want the lowdown on what's gonna unravel and who'll pull that first string." He wiggled his eyebrows and snickered. "By the time those so-called network reporters deliver the obvious, folks will already know what's what." He pointed at Matt. " 'Cause you're gonna tell 'em."

He hadn't been to New York in years. Ten, to be precise. He'd followed the progress being made by construction crews at Ground Zero, but only peripherally. Every line in every story only served as a black-and-white reminder of what the country lost that fateful day. Matt mentally ran down his list of friends killed in the line of duty and a fellow reporter who'd been in the South Tower, waiting to interview some hotshot Wall Street banker when the first plane hit.

Now Liam pointed due east, to bring Matt's attention to the bullpen. "Anybody out there would jump at the chance to write this one. You 'n' me both know that."

Matt followed the line of Liam's finger, gaze resting on the determined faces of coworkers . . . and competitors. His boss was right: any one of them would head north at a moment's notice. So why was he hesitating?

In a word: Honor.

She'd been gone five months, and the only contact he'd had with her in all that time had been occasional conversation from Elton, who talked to her several times a week. Whether she'd confided in her old SAR leader or he'd figured things out on his own, Matt couldn't say. But he was grateful as all getout that the man kept finding legitimate excuses to call and update him.

Last Matt heard, she'd slogged through the paperwork aspect of the job and stood front and center for in-person training sessions. It surprised Matt to hear she wasn't happy up there because if anybody was cut out for work like that, it was Honor, who all but crackled with excitement at every chance to teach someone how to train a rescue dog.

"I'm sending you up there to work, not to schmooze. So you can wipe that hang-dog expression off your face."

Matt looked up so fast, a lock of hair fell across one eye.

"Just because she's there and you're there is no reason you have to see her." He chuckled, then added, "But if you do, you might want to spend a half hour in a barber's chair." That pointer finger wiggled in the air. "You're lookin' a mite ragged around the edges, if you don't mind my sayin'."

Matt finger-combed the hair back from his forehead. "Been busy. The boys. Scouts. Stuff, y'know?"

"Yeah. I know."

And if that expression was any indicator, Liam really did know. Having lost his wife of thirty-two years six months earlier, the grizzled editor was probably the only person in Matt's circle of friends and acquaintances who understood how big a hole Honor's leaving had carved in his life.

"So you can get Harriet to stay with the twins, then?"

"I'll have to check."

Liam shoved his phone closer to Matt's side of the desk and, with a wave of his hand, said, "Well?"

Matt had been calling Harriet's number for so many years, his finger could probably peck out the right keys in his sleep. She picked up on the second ring, her musical "Hello" so effusive that Liam winced and drew back as if blasted with a bucket of ice water.

"The answer is yes," she said, laughing.

"I haven't even asked the question yet!"

"You're calling to see if I'll mind those darlin' boys of yours, right . . . ?"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"Then the answer is yes."

"—but I'll need you for nearly a week. Round the clock at my place."

"And that's an issue because . . ."

Matt laughed, too. "I guess it isn't an issue. Liam's sending me to New York."

She gasped. "To cover the grand opening of the memorial at Ground Zero?"

For a gal who claimed not to like the news, she sure was up on the latest. "Yep."

"I can hardly wait to read what you'll write. You have such a wonderful way with words, Matthew."

Eyebrows raised, he said, "If I hand the phone to Liam, will you repeat that?"

"You'd better not."

"Uh, what?"

"I'm sure that poor man has a mountain of work on his desk. If I get started, singing your praises, he'll still be sitting there at midnight."

"Put on a pretty dress, Harriet Ruford. I'm taking you and the boys out for dinner tonight."

"Don't have any wine with dinner," Liam said as Matt shoved the phone back where it belonged. "You're leaving first thing in the morning." He handed Matt an Amtrak envelope. "Wouldn't want to be fuzzy-headed and miss the 10:10 train, now would you?"

Matt pocketed the tickets and thanked Liam, then hunkered down at his desk. He had two stories due by end of business. One, a 350-word piece on a new artist, exhibiting her paintings at The Gallery in Ellicott City, and the other, a 750-word feature about a kid with terminal cancer who spent his free time painting comic book heroes on his fellow Hopkins patients' forearms. If I hoped to do justice to either—and get them turned in by deadline time—I'd better get his mind off of New York . . . and a certain gorgeous gal who now called the Big Apple home.

 

 

The familiar voice, spilling from the answering machine, greeted her the minute she opened the front door. Heart racing and pulse pounding, Honor's hands shook so hard she could barely get the key out of the lock.

". . . four days," he was saying, "and I'm hoping you'll let me take you to dinner one of those nights."

She let Rerun out back, then kicked off her shoes and stood trembling from her rain-dampened head to panty-hosed feet. "How did he get your number?" she wondered aloud. And then she said, "Elton." The man had consistently delivered news about Matt and the boys, twice weekly—sometimes more— since she'd arrived in New York that last week of March. Nearly every night, she'd heard his DJ-like baritone in her dreams. Hearing it now, almost live-and-in-person, jarred her more than she cared to admit.

Rerun scratched at the door, and she let him in, then played the message again. And again:

"Hey, Honor. It's me, Matt. I know, I know . . . long time no talk to, eh?"

Her fingertips slid slowly over the telephone's keys as he laughed. Oh, how she'd missed the sound if it!

"Liam's sending me to New York. Ground Zero story. I'll probably be there before you even have a chance to listen to this message." He rattled off the name and number of the hotel where he was staying near Ground Zero. "I, ah, I'm hoping you'll call me when you get in. I'd, ah, I'd really like to see you while I'm in town. I'll be there for four days, and I'm hoping you'll let me take you to dinner one of those nights."

Eyes closed, Honor held her breath. Rerun recognized his voice and, resting his chin on the edge of the end table, nudged her hand. "Oh, boy. Aren't you the master of subtlety," she joked, ruffling his fur.

But the dog just sat there, smiling up at her with that expressive amber-eyed face.

"You think I should call him?"

Rerun's whispery woof startled her enough to make her hit the Play button again.

". . . I'm hoping you'll call me when you get in . . ." Well, what could it hurt to call? He'd probably be out and about, anyway, scouting out facts for his story. She'd leave a message, and he'd respond to it while she was at work tomorrow, and so it would go until he went back to Baltimore. Where he belongs.

She wondered if this was how Mercy had felt, when she opened her door in that Chicago apartment building and saw Austin standing in her hallway. Mercy had freely admitted that back then, she'd been a die-hard atheist who'd refused to give God a try, even to ease Austin's mind. He'd already lost so much, Mercy said, before they'd met: he was still in grade school when his dad was killed in a convenience store robbery, a hotshot young cop when his brother vanished into the smoke and rubble of the North Tower, then cancer took his mom. Losing his job as a New York cop had been final blow, and started him on a downward spiral that continued until Griff, his AA sponsor-turned-friend, introduced Austin to Christ. He'd been holding on—just barely—when a stray bullet, fired into a ghetto soup kitchen, took Griff, too. Honor remembered how it put tears in Mercy's eyes, remembering Austin's confession: he didn't want to choose, but if she forced him to, he'd choose God.

And yet by some miracle, Mercy and Austin got past stubbornness and bitterness and attitudes born of past hurts. Reason enough to hope that she and Matt could overcome the things separating them?

Maybe . . . if she could make herself step out in faith, as Mercy and Austin had done.

"If," she said, handing a biscuit to Rerun, "the biggest little word in the English language."

 

 

Matt lathered up his face and stood shirtless in the mirror. Hard to believe, he thought as he stared at his reflection, that he'd been in town two days already and still no word from Honor.

He aimed his chin at the ceiling and dragged the razor from collarbone to jawbone. Ironic, he thought, as the blades scritchscratched across his skin; if his nerves could make noise, that's exactly how they'd sound.

A few mid-afternoon thunderstorms had blown through the area; maybe she'd lost power and didn't get his message. But if she had, and he called again, how would that make him look?

"Like a man who's desperate to know where he stands," he said, stretching his mouth as far left as it would go. After shaving the right cheek, he moved to the left, rinsing the stubbly foam from the razor after just a couple of swipes. "Give her until tonight," he told himself. "Then go home and write your story."

An old Milt Kellum tune played in his head: Got along without ya before I met ya, gonna get along without ya now.

"Yeah, well, that's a whole lot easier said than done."

And then his cell phone rang, startling him so badly he nicked his jaw. "Blast," he said, dabbing at the bloody spot with a balled up tissue. "Who in blue blazes—"

"Hi, Matt. It's me, Honor. Too early to call?"

As if she needed to identify herself. He'd recognize that voice in a rush-hour crowd at Penn Station. "No, no. 'Course not." He sat on the edge of his mattress, alternately looking at the tissue and pressing it to his cut. "My first appointment isn't until noon. Lunch thing with the mayor. I don't need to leave here for a good thirty minutes yet." He groaned to himself. "I'm glad you called. Thought for a while there maybe you didn't get my message. That was some storm blew through here yesterday."

"Yeah. Knocked out power for a lot of folks."

"So how's the new job?"

"It's . . . it's fine, just fine. I'm calling from work, actually, so if all of a sudden I have to hang up, I'll call back."

"Gotcha."

"How are the boys? I'll bet they've each grown a foot since I saw them at the wedding."

"They're good. Great, actually." Had it really come to this? Would they spend the rest of their lives swapping weather stats and other trivia? That, he supposed, depends on whether or not you stay in touch. "Are you out in the field yet, or do the bureaucrats still have you all bound up with red tape?" She laughed, and the delicious sound of it trilled all the way down to his bare toes.

"I'll admit, those first weeks were about as exciting as watching dust collect on the coffee table. I can't tell you how many times I nearly packed up and went home out of sheer frustration and boredom . . ."

I wish you had, he thought, wondering if she realized that she'd called Baltimore home.

". . . but eventually, I slogged through the mountain of paperwork, and came up with a plan that appeased the higherups. And now, I'm happy to say, I get to play outside with all the big kids."

Aw, Honor, he thought, do you have any idea how much I've missed you? "I want to hear all about it, but if I don't get a move on, I'll be late."

"Oh. Right." She giggled. "Can't keep the mayor waiting, now can you?"

"Well, I could, but I won't. At least not until after I get some decent quotes."

"Sure. I understand."

"So, are you free for dinner tonight?"

Even the slight hesitation unnerved him enough to curl his toes. Literally. He flattened both feet on the pilled carpeting, waiting, waiting for her answer.

"When do you go back to Baltimore?"

"Day after tomorrow. On the 8 a.m. train."

"That's wonderful! Not that you're leaving, of course, but that you have some time before you do. I don't have any plans, but—"

No, not a but, he thought as his toes curled up. Again.

"—but where are you staying?"

"Times Square. Why?"

"Well, I'm thinking maybe it would be easier if you took the subway here, and I fixed dinner for us here. I only live a block from the Main Street Station."

"No kidding? I used to live near there. I remember lots of good restaurants. Wouldn't you rather eat out after working all day?"

"Wouldn't you rather have a home-cooked meal after eating out all week?"

"Oh, you can't tell you're Irish . . . answering a question with a question . . ."

"I hate to be picky, but Mackenzie is Scottish. It means Son of Coinneach," she said, emulating a thick brogue.

"It also means fiery and handsome, so I guess there's something to this name-picking stuff."

"So what's your preference? I can throw steaks or pork chops on the grill, or—"

"Fix whatever you'd make if I wasn't coming over. My mom used to say she could put salt and pepper on a rock and I'd eat it, so you can hardly go wrong feeding me."

She started reciting her address and phone number when he stopped her with, "Whoa. Slow down. Let me grab a pen. And paper." Matt rummaged in the drawer beneath the phone and found both, and after he'd written the information down, she told him to stop by any time after five, and he hung up wishing she'd said four.

But who was he kidding? He wouldn't have been happy unless she'd said now.